


Wyvern Queen

by strangebloke



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Female Friendship, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, POV Daenerys Targaryen, POV Edelgard von Hresvelg, POV Female Character, Slaver's Bay (ASoIaF), Slow Burn, Volantis, no beta we die like Glenn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-14
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:02:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 24,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26456101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strangebloke/pseuds/strangebloke
Summary: There were many things that Edelgard did no know about this new world, but one thing had not changed: Her path would still be one covered in blood. She is the fire that will reforge the world, whether in the name of Adrestia or in the name of the Mother of Dragons. That much will be true in any world.
Relationships: Edelgard von Hresvelg & Daenerys Targaryen, Edelgard von Hresvelg & Hubert von Vestra, Ferdinand von Aegir/Dorothea Arnault, Flayn/Linhardt von Hevring
Comments: 35
Kudos: 115





	1. In Peace

WYVERN QUEEN  
\---

“The peasantry we interrogated informed me that we are trespassing lands belonging to Magister Plaekus of Volantis. There are regional authorities we could report to first, but the man who holds authority is nearly three days south from here by foot.” Hubert’s voice remained low and calm, without inflection. Edelgard knew from experience that Hubert only became this quiet when he was truly furious.

But then, that was hardly surprising, given the circumstances.

The purple-black smoke of Solon’s magic, the acrid scent that had flooded the air as he pronounced the words of the spell, the professor’s face as she turned on them in shock… that had been the last any of them had seen of Fodlan.

There had been darkness then, for a moment, and then suddenly they had been dropped here, in a vineyard where the sun bore down upon them like a hammer. From nighttime to daytime. Edelgard did not much like what that might signify. Nearly two hundred souls, with wyverns, spellbooks, horses, and gear had been transported by Solon’s spell. Caspar, Ferdinand, Dorothea… the best and the brightest the Empire had to offer, and dozens of men and women who had been under their command in the fight against Solon.

“Magister,” She repeated, bringing back her mind to the present. “That’s no title I have ever heard of.”

“Not a title of any of our southern neighbors,” Hubert agreed, “But they speak our language, if a strange dialect of it which is both convenient and... deeply disturbing.” Cold water filled her spine. Until now she had merely assumed that they were far, far from home, possibly on a continent of which they had never even heard, but... there were legends of persons transported to the far distant past or future. It seemed impossible, but she had to consider every possibility.

She wanted to curse, to spit, to tear out her hair and lay down and die. But she had a path to walk. She had people depending on her, a whole continent depending on her. And though they might be a thousand miles and a thousand years from anywhere she could recognize on a map, she would find a way to make her vision into a reality.

“Get me a wyvern.” She ordered. “I will see this Magister now. We need to get our bearings, we need time to establish ourselves. If I meet with him perhaps we can avoid conflict for the moment.”

"As your advisor, Lady Edelgard, I must ask you to consider if this is truly the best course of action. Cooperation with the locals has some advantages, but... a more violent approach might be merited as well. It may be in our best interest if the local authorities did not yet know we were here."

"You mean to support ourselves with simple banditry?" She did not allow any judgement to enter her tone. Hubert could be cold-blooded, but failing to consider his advice would be unwise.

"Two hundred men and women, fifty horses, and twenty wyverns. All these need food, lodging, and more." He said simply. "Simply taking what we need will require less time than begging or bartering for it, and will leave us with more time to find our way home."

"Bandits are always ultimately hunted down and killed," Edelgard replied, "And we have no idea of the capability of the locals."

Hubert chuckled darkly. "We are a very elite force, my Lady."

It was true, she knew. The finest the Empire had to offer were here with her now. Looking out over the silent vineyards of the land they found herself in, she found it hard to believe that this land could raise a force that could effectively hunt them. She could see hills in the distance, hills that could hide a skilled group of bandits for decades. It would be a bloody path to carve, a path where they had to kill to survive, over and over, but how different was that from what she had already committed to do? Guilt weighed heavy on her heart, and she shook her head.

"We are elite," she agreed firmly. "And that will make it easy for us to find work as mercenaries." She would walk the bloody path, but not now. Not yet.

“As you command, Lady Edelgard...” He paused a moment. “But you will not go unguarded. A few of our most excellent warriors. Ferdinand, Petra, Caspar... they can all take wyverns of their own and follow you. Shall I send for them?"

“I’ll ask them myself,” Edelgard stated. She could not order anyone, not now. Her rank would mean next to nothing out here in this strange land. If the Black Eagles followed her, it would be because she had won them to her side, not because her father sat the throne of Adrestia. Her heart rose in her throat. She had not expected to test their loyalty so soon.

Ferdinand had taken over a role of leadership among the battalions. He sat proudly on the back of his warhorse, issuing commands with his fine baritone voice. Men and women were cutting banners to pieces, stitching them together into makeshift tents with lances for support. He had ordered them to make camp, Edelgard realized with a pang of horror. Ferdinand had taken command of her army.

“Who told you to make camp?” She kept her tone as light as possible to hide her anger. “I believe I would remember if I had given you such an order.”

“Ah, Edelgard!” Ferdinand’s orange eyes smiled in reply, “You remember correctly. You did not order me to do anything at all! But it is self-evident that making camp is what we must do. Though it is daytime here, it was nighttime when we left Fodlan and we have just come from a battle besides. Surely you cannot mean to say that you intend for us to march from here?”

She paused. Everything Ferdinand had said was correct. Of course it was. Ferdinand Von Aegir had always been monstrously talented. That was why she had to be careful with him. Her own father, the Emperor of Adrestia, had become a prisoner in his own home after underestimating the Von Aegir family, and Edelgard did not intend to repeat her father’s mistakes.

“Of course we should make camp,” Edelgard allowed, “If there’s any local response to our appearance it will not come for a day or two and we should rest while we can. But there’s something else I need you for. Come.”

It was greatly to her satisfaction that Ferdinand followed her without further question. “We’re going to see the lord of these lands,” she explained.

“Ah!” Ferdinand said with a smile. “And you require someone skilled in the art of diplomacy at your side.”

“Not just that. You know how to ride a wyvern and we need to speak to this man immediately. If I merely wanted someone who could be diplomatic, I would be asking Dorothea.”

His smile fractured for the barest of moments, no doubt stinging from the implication that a commoner would be more useful than himself in a diplomatic venture. He rallied a second later, as he always did. “I wish to deny your choice, but you are not incorrect. Her skills in the art of conversation rival my own.”

“Where is Petra? I want to have as many of the Black Eagles there as we can, and I will be glad of her sword arm if we have to fight. The three of us should be able to fight our way out any local lord’s house if we must.”

“She is just over there,” Ferdinand replied, his smile flashing. “But only the three of us? If you wish to have as many of our house present, would there not be a fourth?”

“Caspar knows how to sit a wyvern, but I would rather have him here.” Caspar Bergliez was a short-tempered brawler who compensated for his lack of height by making himself as loud as possible. Edelgard valued him as a friend and as a fighter, but she did not want him anywhere near a diplomatic venture. She felt confident that Caspar would agree with that evaluation.

Ferdinand shook his head, “No, it was Flayn of whom I was thinking. Despite her lack of martial interest, she is a talented aerialist, and we would do well to have such a skilled healer in our party.”

Edelgard paused, her heartbeat quickening. Flayn. A flood of guilt threatened to rise up within her. The girl had joined the Black Eagles just a few months ago, and Edelgard had not yet thought through the implications of her presence here with them. With the exception of Hubert and herself, all the Eagles thought Flayn to be little more than she appeared to be: A sheltered, kind girl of perhaps fifteen, nothing more or less. Edelgard knew the truth. The creature called Flayn was not human, not remotely. The church had placed her in their house for reasons Edelgard could only guess at. Perhaps she was here to be a spy, or as an assassin. She was ancient, centuries-old at least, and every aspect of her human appearance was a carefully calculated lie. Still, as Edelgard saw her, smiling and laughing at one of Caspar’s jokes… she could not help what her foolish heart felt for the girl. Guilt for what she had done to Flayn already. Guilt for what she planned to do in the near future.

“Of course, my mistake,” Edelgard admitted, shaking off her dark mood. She could not allow Flayn or the others to suspect what she knew, especially not now. Edelgard had to assume that the creature would assist them for as long as they were away from Fodlan. “You are correct. Flayn should come with us as well. You see to her, I will get Petra.”

“I am more than happy to oblige.”

She only nodded in reply, allowing Ferdinand to leave. Even amongst a party of two hundred men and women, finding Petra was no challenge. The girl’s straight-backed posture and long purple braid would have identified her anywhere.

“Lady Edelgard,” Petra stated politely, bowing only slightly at her approach.

“Petra. We are going to meet with the local leadership. I would be grateful to have you by my side.”

“I am being grateful that you should ask me,” Petra replied. Fodlan was her second language, and her speech was still stilted and uncertain. “Only... I am confusion, Lady Edelgard. I am not a noble of the Empire.”

“We are very far from home. The people here have never heard of Adrestia or Brigid, so for the moment we must consider ourselves as one people.”

Petra smiled. “One people? I am liking that idea. But I am frustration about the language here. I am hearing that the people of this place are speaking Fodlan. Why should they not be speaking Brigid?”

Edelgard smiled in spite of herself. “That fact concerns me as well. If they were speaking Brigid I would know why I do not recognize the terrain. But come, let us find our wyverns.”

Hubert had gathered the wyverns in the center of the camp, all twenty of them, wings bound and legs chained. Edelgard paused for half a moment before going in to see them.

Petra laughed at her. “This hesitation is not promising, Lady Edelgard.”

Edelgard sighed. Petra was right, of course. A wyvern could be made to accept a rider over time, but they never became tame. Every new rider would have to prove themselves, a process that usually took days if not weeks. None of her classmates had been on wyverns when Solon dropped them here, so they would be borrowing mounts from the enlisted men. That meant that each of them would have to break in a wyvern right here and now on the first attempt, something only done by experts or madmen. Which was she, an expert or a madwoman? Perhaps she was both.

“Thank you for accepting my request, Petra,” Edelgard stated. “You know the dangers and yet you still agreed without question.”

Petra smiled. “I am knowing the dangers. I am also knowing that you need my help now more than ever.”

Edelgard nodded, setting her ax aside as she stepped into the ring. A black-scaled juvenile caught her eye first, and she walked toward it without hesitation, keeping its great yellow eyes firmly locked with her own. You could not truly appreciate how massive a wyvern was until you were close to one, until you could feel the heat of their breath. The juvenile lunged forward suddenly. No time to think. Heat flared in her heart and she leapt straight up, just as the beast’s mouth would have closed on her, slamming her heel into its nose as she fell, pinning it to the ground beneath her. The muscle’s in a wyvern’s neck were weak, and even her own small weight would be enough to hold it down. It writhed uncomfortably for perhaps a moment, and then lay still as an attendant came by to hand her the reigns. Edelgard allowed herself to sigh with relief. Another victory. Another step forward.

“I’ve never seen it done like that before!” Flayn’s cheery voice called out from above, and Edelgard squinted up to see that the green-haired girl was sitting proudly atop a great old brown-skinned wyvern, one of the oldest and crankiest of the lot. “You are so mighty, Edelgard, you move with such power!”

Edelgard sighed, her crests still radiating with energy after their activation moments ago. The power in her blood was addictive, all-consuming. She did not like to depend upon it. “ I did not manage it as cleanly as I would like,” she admitted, “Not as cleanly as you’ve seemed to manage.”

“Oh I’ve always been good with Wyverns, you know,” she reached down to scratch the old monster behind its ears. “My brother is even better.”

And why was that Flayn? Because you and your brother are closer kin to wyverns than to humans? Edelgard did not trust herself to say anything.

“Edelgard, I was speaking with Hubert and,” Flayn paused mid-statement. “He said that the farmers he spoke with were slaves.”

Edelgard frowned. Slavery had been forbidden in Fodlan since time immemorial, as a core teaching of the church of Seiros. Edelgard was no friend of the church, but to some extent she was grateful for their influence on this matter. Slavery was the highest evil, the thing she despised more than any other. Edelgard had not even considered what sort of barbaric hellhole they might have been dropped into. Slavery was common enough in other countries, why should she not expect to find it here?

“There’s nothing we can do about it for now Flayn,” She said the words. She knew it was true. Most of the slaves would not want to be freed, in all likelihood. What would they have to offer them? The life of a bandit? There was nothing they could do about it. That was true. But she wished in her heart it were otherwise. “Once we have our bearings we will talk about what we can do in our time here, but for now I want to get a look at whoever is ruling this area.”

They were in the air within an hour, soaring high on waves of heat rising from the ground. Vineyards and olive groves and fields of wheat passed below them, and the reality of their situation began to sink in for her. Not for the first time, she cursed Solon and his entire species. He had been trying to aim for the Professor, for Byleth, but something had gone wrong with the spell. Fool. She hoped Byleth had killed him.

She identified the residence of Magister Plaekus from miles away, a shining blue-domed pearl in a background of browns and greens. The structure was essentially a cube, with equal length, breadth, and depth, surrounded on all sides by a lush garden. Edelgard wondered how he got all that water up to the top of the hill. She had an uncomfortable feeling the answer involved massive amounts of slave labor.

The descent began, her party of wyverns circling to earth like great vultures, and she had ample opportunity to study the ground below her. The mansion was far larger and more luxurious than she had initially thought, large enough to house several hundred at once, with hundreds more doubtless employed in the stables, warehouses, blacksmiths, and bakeries at the base of the hill. Etching and sculpture decorated every inch of the grounds of the mansion itself, and she could spy the figures of gods and goddesses peeking out from the leafy boughs of the garden.

Until now she had dismissed these locals as barbarians, she realized. Less sophisticated than Almyra or Dagda. After all, what people could call themselves civilized and still allow slavery? She wanted to laugh at herself. Had she not always scorned the people of Fodlan for being so convinced of their own superiority? Yet she had fallen into the same traps. No, slavery was evil, but evil men could be civilized too. She should not treat the rulers of this land so lightly.

Below them, men were scrambling, hurrying to ready themselves for what must look like a raid or an invasion. When they landed in the town square, a small army of men and horses. A tall, olive-skinned man wearing fine silk over scale rode in front, and he raised his hand in greeting. Edelgard pulled up hard on her reins and stood up in the saddle.

“I am Edelgard Von Hresvelg,” She pronounced, stuttering a moment as she remembered none of her titles would mean anything here. She was nothing, she was void, she had nothing but her own talents and abilities to guide her here. “Leader of the Black Eagles mercenary company. We come in peace. The bulk of my company is three days hence, and I have come to ask Magister Plaekus for the right of peaceful passage through his lands.”

And if they will not give peace, Edelgard thought with dread, then I must give them war.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trying on a new side project, mostly because I've been heavily binging fe3h lately. Unsure if this will get any momentum or not but it should be fun.
> 
> Some notes:  
> The DLC is not in play here because many people don't have it.
> 
> The wuxia animations of the fights in Fire Emblem are not considered canon here. In another timeline I'm writing a fanfic where the Fodlani overrun all their enemies with magical backflipping horses, but this is not that timeline. An important theme of FE3H is that the people of fodlan are not genetically superior to their neighbors, and making them monstrously superhuman would subvert that. Persons with Crests like Ferdinand or Big E herself are slightly superhuman, but even then normal people are at least sort of able to keep up with them.
> 
> Yes I'll get back to Red Robb presently, this is just for laughs.
> 
> Literally no part of this is meant to be taken seriously


	2. Chapter 2: To Work

Chapter 2: To Work  
\---

“We’ve found them,” Caspar announced, almost falling off his wyvern in eagerness to tell her the news. “They’re still stopped for resupply on the other side of the island. It’s just as we’d hoped!”

“Are we sure it’s the pirates we’ve been hired to target?” Edelgard had enough blood on her hands without wreaking vengeance on unsuspecting merchants.

“The ships are matching the drawings that we were given,” Petra replied. “The prow of the greatest of them has the carving of a harpy on the front, and the sides of the ships are colored with blackness just as we were told.”

“What are their numbers?”

“There’s like a hundred armed men on the shore, and something like double that number of galley slaves,” Caspar said, “But I couldn’t count them, not without getting close enough that they might have noticed me.”

Edelgard drew in a slight breath. Galley slaves. Their employer counted the galley slaves among the “stolen property” that the Black Eagles were to retrieve. These pirates had been sailors three months ago, freemen and slaves in service to a Volantene Triarch. For whatever reason, they had gone pirate, mutinied against their masters, and taken to raiding the coast. The former owner of the ship had offered a generous bounty, and Edelgard had leaped at the chance. Now, though, she questioned if it was worth it. After all, what would she be doing besides returning freed slaves to their masters?

But these were pirates, she reminded herself. Pirates who murdered and tortured all who passed they could find. Rough, evil men, who would take free crews and sell them into slavery. The galley slaves would be no less free for their involvement. She had never balked at the destruction of such rough persons before, why should she now? If she had been commanded to kill all the galley slaves for their complicit support of the pirates, would she have stopped then?

No. She could not, would not stop. She would not accept the meager pay they received as retainers and try to slowly build up wealth by haggling and economy. Wealth meant freedom in Volantis, it meant power, and without power, she would never find a way home, never be able to protect her own from harm. If that meant taking on unsavory work like retrieving a crew of ‘stolen’ slaves, then she would do it, and do it happily. She had done worse.

“I take it the slaves were left on the ship?” She said.

"Chained to the oars,” Petra replied.

“Good. That will make this easier.”

She had only brought a tithe of her strength to bear for this battle. A small number of imperial mages and two heavily armored pavise battalions. Thirty souls, less than a third the number of the pirates, but they would be more than enough. Transporting more to this island would have cut into their profits, would have required her to pull personnel from other tasks she had taken on as leader of the Black Eagles.

The sun baked them as they marched, roasting them in their armor. The soldiers did not complain, however. These were men of the empire who had trained in the far south near Enbarr, and they were accustomed to such conditions, much more than some of the other mercenaries that had been pulled to this world with them. Edelgard was glad to have brought these with her.

The trees were thick and packed in close as they came down the hillside, and by the time they saw the pirates they were nearly upon them. The three galleys used by the pirates were at anchor in the tiny cove, while most of the crew had come ashore to gather water and food and wood for repairs. There was no order, no system to their camp, just a mass of boxes and men and drink, as though some great sea-beast had vomited them onto the beach.

The enemy was already in motion to receive them, dropping tools and picking up weapons to form a line on the beach. So they had decided to fight. No doubt they hoped to protect their supplies that they had brought onto the beachhead with them. Their mistake. Flight would have served them better, although, in the end, it would not make any difference. Edelgard would destroy them one way or another.

There was no parlay, no attempt at peace. Pirates only negotiated when they had the upper hand when they were holding the threat of torture and death over their enemies. But the pirates knew as well as Edelgard did that surrender would only mean death by hanging in the docks of Volantis. They intended to fight to the last man, and Edelgard intended to oblige them.

“Mages!” She cried, and fire arced into the assembling lines of pirates, exploding and burning a dozen of them before the fight even began. The enemy charged and Edelgard’s force held their ground, heavy pavise shields forming a wall against the enemy’s archers. This was the core of the Imperial war doctrine. Superior artillery to force the enemy to approach, and heavy infantry to weather the enemy assault until the battle was won.

Edelgard met the tip of the enemy’s charge personally, her crests setting her body on fire with power as she threw a full-grown man into the dirt with a single push of her shield. Another tried to get close but she took the blow on her armor and cut him in two with a single blow of her ax. These men had hopes, had dreams, but it could not matter. Her dream was stronger, and it would prevail.

A light-skinned brute managed to get a sword under her guard and stagger her backward, but her crests burned hotter and she threw him back with a single kick. The enemy was breaking already, she realized, running for their ship, trampling their allies in the rush to get away from the invincible wall of shields and spears. Her mages loosed their magic again, burning dozens as they ran.

The first of them were getting to the boats, getting to freedom. They could row out to the galleys, row out to the safety of the ships, find somewhere to rebuild.

No.

Caspar swooped down, low and fast, his black wyvern’s talons crushing one of the boats in a single strike. Petra came right behind, capsizing another boat with a single contemptuous tail-flick before circling and landing on the deck of one of the ships. The mages loosed their magic for a third and final time, and yet another boat went up in flames.

She would prevail, she promised herself. No matter what difficulty presented itself, she would crush all in her path.

****

The colors of the market always delighted Dorothea. A riot of yellows and oranges and greens filled the square, coloring booths filled with fruits and cloth and steel. Outside the great black walls of the inner city, Volantis was a place of light and life and filth and Dorothea loved every minute of it. Whatever terrors this world held, Dorothea at least would enjoy the raw sensation and energy of this place...

...However unpleasant the company was.

“This market does not have fish of an acceptable freshness!” Ferdinand cried. “I am most distressed!”

“Surely we can get some other form of meat, Ferdy. I saw cuts of pork a few shops back.”

“Pork? For wyverns!” Ferdinand laughed, “No, that particular item is not one on which we will be compromising. I am afraid we must search farther afield.”

Dorothea merely nodded. It would do no good to argue with him, not on a matter like this. Ferdinand was a scion of the greatest noble house in the empire and was used to having things his own way. Of course, at the moment he was nothing more than a talented, well-equipped mercenary, but that had done little to shake his annoying confidence.

“I know that you hate me,” Ferdinand said, surprising her from her reverie with a flash of his smile. “But I had thought you would not object to spending more time in the markets.”

Dorothea rolled her eyes. “I was just worried you would drag us out of here before I had a proper chance to browse. I like to shop for more things than provisions and weapons, you know.” She smiled and dropped a coin into the hat of a nearby street performer who played a fascinating little flute the likes of which she had never seen before.

“So long as I have your excellent company, Dorothea, I have no objection to such an endeavor.”

The sun had risen high in the sky by the time they made it down to the wharves where fresher produce was brought in. Compared with the chaotic sensuality of the markets higher uptown, the wharves were relatively clean and plain.

Except for the people, who were even more varied and colorful than further up in the city. It was too much to take in. Squat, bowlegged men with pointed heads mixed with flat-faced, copper-skinned women and tall pale figures who she knew now to be merchants from the city of Qarth. The wares were less exciting, but at least Ferdinand was able to requisition his fish, and afterward he was more than happy to let her explore.

“Ferdy, what do you make of this shawl? I think it would be most helpful to be able to blend in with the locals, and I think this one is most...” her voice trailed off as she realized Ferdinand was ignoring her. She was not mad at him for that, not really, but she was curious. For all his flaws, he had never lacked in attentiveness toward her.

Now his eyes were fixed on a faraway point, an auction block at the far end of the market… Then Dorothea saw it, the men and women they were bringing up to the block to be sold. They were as diverse and colorful as the rest of the people on the wharf, but it was a little brown-haired boy that caught her eye. She averted her gaze to look back at Ferdinand, and with a shock, she realized that her companion was trembling.

“Not here,” she urged, “Not now.”

“I am aware,” Ferdinand replied hotly, “I am aware of our situation. But this is not something I easily bear. It is not in my nature to stand idly by while...”

“I know.”

And she did. She understood. She had something in common with him, with Ferdinand Von Aegir. They had both spent their youth in Enbarr, she as an orphaned street rat, he as the son of the most powerful man in the Empire, but here in another world where nothing was familiar and nearly everyone she talked to was a slave or slaver... Here they might as well be family.

“We cannot do anything, not now. That’s why Edelgard is working us so hard, so that we can get money, get influence, to really make a difference.”

“I could do something now,” Ferdinand’s jaw was set. “I have gold. I could go up there, buy out half the auction block. Make them free, and give them a choice to work for the company. Train them to fight, even.”

“Oh, Ferdy. You know that won’t work. All you’ll be doing is giving those slavers some more business and driving up the prices at the auction. If anything you’d encourage more slavers to get into the business because you’ll have made it more profitable. Something like that just won’t work.”

Ferdinand frowned. “I am aware of these concerns, Dorothea, but you fail to see my true intention. Slavers are terrified of their slaves. That is why so many beat their slaves brutally. It is not to make them work harder, after all, a beating will only injure a slave and make them incapable of work. No, they beat them because they fear what would happen if their slaves realized that they can hold weapons as well as any man. A few former slaves who can fight, who can earn wealth for themselves and know how to read and write? That would undercut everything this rotten city is built on.”

“My, Ferdy, that sounds almost revolutionary of you.”

“It is the duty of nobility to guard the people and watch over them. This… rampant exploitation goes directly after everything I have ever believed.”

“I’m no noble, but I agree well enough with that as a goal. Still, it seems impossible to know what to do. Half the time the people doing the beating are other slaves, and the army is mostly slaves too. Whatever possible thing I think to do, it only seems like it will make things worse.”

“Even so,” said Ferdinand, “I will not stand idle forever.”

****

“How is morale?”

It is a question Edelgard has asked Hubert a thousand times if she has asked him once.

“No defections since you left a week ago,” Hubert chuckled. “Nobody seems eager to try their luck on the streets of Volantis.”

“You know that is not what I mean.”

Hubert sighed and shuffled his paperwork. Dark circles had begun to form under his eyes. Hubert had been stressed and overworked for months before they had come here, and his load had gotten no lighter in the days since. “No serious fights, not while Caspar has been away. But Ferdinand has been getting dangerous. He talks increasingly of expanding our company, of...”

"It might not be the worst idea.”

Hubert sneered. “You damn him with faint praise, Lady Edelgard. Perhaps we could come up with a worse idea if we tried, but Ferdinand's notion would nonetheless lead to all of our deaths. Training slaves and arming them would attract the attention of one of the tetrarchs. This city has not survived this long by tolerating sedition within its midst.”

“We cannot continue as we are, however,” Edelgard said. “Our group is straining, cracking at the seams, and every merchant in this city is trying to force us into bankruptcy so that they can buy our wyverns from us. We’re a profitable venture for now, but that will not last for long.”

Hubert smirked, and it was then that she knew she had been had. He had baited her, tricked her into describing their position so hopelessly. He had intentionally set her up to say those things so that she would accept whatever proposal he had in mind.

“Alright, Hubert, tell me what you have in mind.”

“A long-term, high-risk contract,” Hubert says. “Not in Volantis. Yunkai. To the East. One of the Wise Masters of that fair city reached out to me. They have fears of a conqueror coming from the south, you see, one who has a set of pet dragons. Well, they are called dragons, but from what I gather they are nothing more than fire-breathing wyverns. They have some hopes that we might act as a fitting counter to this ‘Mother of Dragons’ and her pets, and they are willing to pay handsomely up front.”

“That would seem to fix none of our issues except for our monetary ones. Yunkai is by all accounts even worse than Volantis.”

“You are correct as always, Lady Edelgard. But there is one thing I have not told you yet,” Hubert’s smirk widened into his full shark’s smile. “The other title of this young conqueror is the ‘Breaker of Chains’.”


	3. Chapter 3

Edelgard kept her eyes glued to the horizon, determined to ignore the rocking of the ship beneath her. Crossing from Volantis to Yunkai had proved to be a harrowing experience, made worse by Edelgard’s fear of the sea. She had never learned to swim, that was part of it. But another part, she thought, was that the utter darkness of the deep ocean terrified her, reminded her too much of the darkness outside her cell that she had stared into every day for so many years.

“Lady Edelgard, are you well?” Hubert said, appearing at her side. “They say that a storm is approaching.”

“I am well,” Edelgard replied, breathing in slightly as the ship rolled with a particularly large wave. “We will be in Yunkai in a few hours, and this entire voyage will be put behind us.”

“That is true.”

Hubert let the silence hang for a moment. Edelgard knew what he wanted to say. He wanted to say that he had told her so, that he had told her to finish the journey on wyvernback while he managed the voyage. She could have skipped the last week with one day of hard flying, and avoided all this discomfort and trouble. But Edelgard would not abandon her troops. She would suffer everything they suffered. That was the least she could do, given what she asked of them.

“Might I distract you with an amusing anecdote?” Hubert’s voice held that rare note of true amusement and Edelgard smiled. “This place, men in Volantis called it Slaver’s Bay. Did you not think that odd?”

“Not particularly. The Volantenes are insular lackwits who have no notion of anything that goes on outside their own black walls. What do the locals call it?”

“They call it the Bay of Ghis. You see, there was once a great empire here, an empire that rivaled Valyria itself. The Volantenes call it Slaver’s Bay to cover up that proud history, to pretend as if it never happened.”

“Insecurity.”

“Indeed. I stumbled on a particularly interesting text, one that suggested that after winning the war with Old Ghis, Valyria adopted nearly all of their cultures throughout the empire. I wonder if that’s why the Volantenes are so eager to downplay the history of their old rival?” Hubert chuckled. “The idea that the Ghiscari were the ones to civilize Valyria… that’s something they could never allow to be contemplated.”

Edelgard frowned. “Those who always look to the past will soon find that they have no future. The march of history does not wait for men.”

“Yet? Was it too small a thing for you to upend one continent? Must you reforge this continent as well?”

“Are you doubting me?”

Hubert smiled and looked out at the approaching horizon. “Never.”

***

The wharves stank of fish and dung when they landed, men and beasts crowding about at the side of the docks to get a closer view at their approaching vessels and the great scaled beasts that currently rested atop them. The walls and the docks were formed of crumbling yellow stone, replaced with clay or wood wherever the ancient stonework had turned to dust. One young man lost his footing and fell screaming into the water. 

Over all the chaos reigned the Harpy, a monstrous statue that loomed above the docks. The beast had the torso and head of a naked woman but had bat wings in place of arms, eagle talons in place of legs, and a scorpion’s tail trailing out behind. Edelgard wondered if such a monster had ever haunted these hills or if it was just a contrivance of heraldry. The only monsters in this place now were the human kind.

A band of armed slaves cleared the area of gawkers as a wide palanquin came forward, born by twelve strong men. Their employer had come to meet them directly, then, or one of his chief officials. Their crew strained and pulled to bring the ship into port. 

A silk-dressed slave with a collar of gold stepped down from the palanquin to greet them as they came down the gangplank. “My Wise Master, Yezzan Mo Qaggaz, bids you welcome to the Yellow City, Edelgard of Hresvelg. I am Mekkah, the Honored Seneschal of his wisdom, and I will be your overseer in your time here in the Yellow City.”

She curtsied, slightly, though it went against her every instinct to do so. “I must thank the Wise Master for the opportunity to serve.” She paused. “Please forgive my barbarian’s ways, Seneschal. I am a foreigner to these parts and know little of your customs.”

The Seneschal laughed. “Oh, you need not worry about that, for Wise Yezzan is a great lover of all things foreign and strange, and he has already resolved to spoil you with entertainment and luxury in his pleasure garden. He even grants you the honor of a private audience with him, that you may tell him of yourself and your mercenary company.”

Edelgard allowed her eyebrows to rise in surprise. Their employer had taken a particular interest in them, it seemed. She had not expected such a thing. Yezzan Mo Qaggaz had more gold and larger fleets than any of the other Masters. He was no petty merchant, no trader of cheap goods, and certainly not someone who should be troubling himself with a small band of mercenaries. Hubert sensed the strangeness of it as well. His posture had become tenser, more rigid. Not for the first time, she felt gratitude that her strong left hand remained by her side.

“We are honored,” she replied, sure to not let her uncertainty into her voice. This was an opportunity if she played her cards correctly. She had no intention of seriously working with the slavers against Daenerys Targaryen, the Breaker of Chains, but Yunkai was an enormous, ancient city,. and the more she knew of it the more abley she could betray its masters to this conquering hero.

Unless this Daenerys offered only bondage by a different name. Then Edelgard would have to betray both the Wise Masters and their enemy. She was surprised by how little the prospect of fighting the entire continent scared her.

After a few more pleasantries, the party marched up toward Yezzan’s pleasure palace, drawing stares at every turn, more than they had earned even in Volantis. The wyverns, of course, drew the most interest, and more than once one of the soldiers had to discourage a street urchin from getting too close to them. But it was not only their mounts that drew attention. Even among the diverse streets of Yunkai, two hundred pale-skinned Fodlani stuck out sharply. The Ghiscari themselves were a bronze-skinned people with hair ranging from black to dark red in color, every one of them wearing an iron color. The other races were harder to identify. She knew that the tall, pale men were from Qarth and that the white-haired merchants hailed from Volantis, but the rest were harder to place.

“Lady Edelgard,” Hubert’s voice cut in from the side. “I will never be far from you during your private talks with this Yezzan. Know that you may call on me to move you to safety in the case of an emergency.”

Edelgard knew better than to forbid him from this. Hubert was more than capable of disobeying her orders when he thought it served her best interest.

The pleasure palace itself was a stepped pyramid built of the same yellow stone as the walls but freshly repaired and with intricate carvings and murals placed in the side. As houses went, it was not even half the size of the Imperial Palace in Enbarr, but still, Edelgard could appreciate the wealth of their employer. This was no mere merchant. This man was a Lord of Yunkai in all but name.

The pleasure garden was no less luxurious, with singers and harpists and all manner of entertainment. For her part, Edelgard enjoyed none of it. Slaves, they were all slaves. The grotesques, the bed-warmers, the performers, they all wore collars. Some were of silver, some were of gold, but no servant was without. Did some of them want to be there? Did they smile for joy, or for fear that they would be abused if they dared to be sad in their masters’ presence?

The Seneschal ushered Edelgard into a private garden, where Yezzan Mo Qaggaz awaited her.

The man was yellow. Yellow, and obese beyond reason, stinking strongly of urine and shit. Even the whites of his eyes had been stained until they were nearly the same color as his unhealthy skin. He quivered and sweated in the heat, soaking his rich silks despite the slave attendants who fanned him constantly. Edelgard swallowed the urge to gag in the man’s presence.

“You honor me,” she said with a small bow. “I had not expected to be so distinguished.”

“Please,” the man wheezed, gesturing to a nearby bench. “Take a seat, and do not concern yourself overmuch with decorum... I have no time to be concerned with such things.”

He was dying, she realized, and had been for a long time. “You wanted to hear of my mercenary company?”

“Yes,” he said simply. “You may not think it possible, looking at me now, but I was once a well-traveled man. I have seen wyverns before this, flying off the coast of Sothoryos. I even tried to capture and tame one, but…” He laughed, but the smile did not touch his eyes. “I instead became sick with my current disease. When word of you and your sellswords first came to my ears, I thought that I must bring you over to Yunkai and learn of your methods," He sighed. "That was before this business with the Dragon Queen began."

“The process is not simple,” Edelgard admitted. “The beasts have to be raised from the egg, and magic needs to be skillfully employed to ensure they grow healthy and strong in captivity.”

Yezzan shifted slightly, wincing in pain as though the movement cost him. “Sorcery?” He clicked his tongue. “I should have known this would be required. The beasts of Sothoryos, they are not tamed by mortal means. What manner of magi do you employ? Shadowbinders? Warlocks? Firemages? We here in the East are not so unused to sorcery as the Volantenes.”

The words were unfamiliar to Edelgard, who had been trained to think of magic as white, black, or dark. Would dark magic be shadow magic? But then, perhaps these were merely different schools of magic? She was overthinking her answer. She need not overexert herself in this conversation, “We have sorcerers of many varieties amongst our number, but the potion we use is no deep or secret art. Even so, a wyvern is never tame, not truly.”

“Perhaps because they are so intelligent?”

Edelgard’s mouth opened to speak and then closed again.

The yellow giant chuckled quietly. “You had something to say?”

“I merely thought it odd,” she said, choosing her words carefully, “I would have expected a Wise Master to believe nothing truly untameable, no matter how intelligent.” Her eyes went to the purple-haired servant standing by Yezzan’s side, fanning him loyally.

“Because of my slaves?” He shook his head. “Yes, I suppose that is a fair thing to think. Many of the Masters, they will say as you have said. They view their slaves with fear and beat them and try to crush their spirit. Malazza and Paezhar care only for their soldiers and treat all else with contempt. Grazdan beats his slaves himself, and if none has done wrong he will find one to beat for the sake of his own exercise.” 

Yezzan clicked his tongue. “And they call themselves the Wise Masters. Pah! We should call them the Foolish Masters. Men are not tame, and you cannot make them so, not by torture. What man becomes truly loyal to their torturer? This thing, it does not happen. Perhaps, a slave might change their behavior, might do as you wish, but their spirit will always remain free. The lowest slaves will be as lazy as they can be without getting beat, the overseers will rob you blind when you are not watching, and the seneschal will smother you with your pillows.”

“You are rich and can afford largesse. The poorer masters have to take harder measures to hold onto power.” 

“And how do you think that is? How is it that I became the richest of all the Masters of Yunkai? Because I starved my slaves and threatened them with death? Ha! I fed them well, I sent healers to them when they were sick, and if I had to trade them, I always sold their families along with them and got them a better position than the one they were leaving. You prove yourself to your wyverns? I prove myself to my slaves, and they serve me well in exchange. Look at me. I am rotting from the inside out and cannot move without twelve strong men to lift me. Could I rule by terror? Yet I rule nonetheless, and those who are mine will not let this Daenerys break their chains so long as they draw breath.”

This conversation had become dangerous. She could feel her hand creeping toward the haft of her ax, her Crests humming with the expectation of a fight. He painted a rosy picture, Edelgard thought. His kindness was an affectation, something done to calm the masses, to prevent them from open revolt. It was an act, a performance, a lie that only worked because of the ever-present threat that if he died his slaves would be sold to worse masters. There were always elements like him in any degenerate society. Lords who were kinder than they had to be and were praised for it. How much better if there was no need for kindness at all? 

“I am only a simple sellsword and I know little of the ways of slave keeping,” Edelgard replied. She must end this conversation before she said something she regretted.

“Oh?” Yezzan said, “You do not find our conversation of interest?”

“I only am surprised that my Wise Master would take the time to explain himself to one such as I.”

“One such as you? What do you think you are to me?”

“A mercenary.”

The great Yezzan leaned further into his cushions and sighed. “When I was a young man I dreamed of seeing the wonders of the earth, of seeing Asshai and singing with the shadowbinders, of climbing to the top of the Hightower and pissing in the wind… but now, though I am still not old and my mind has not left me, I find myself dying and incapable of travel. What more can I do, than to bring the wonders of the world to my doorstep, and hope to forget death?” Tears sparkled in his yellow-black eyes. “You have let me see wyverns dancing in the wind again, Edelgard of Volantis, and so I must consider you a friend.”

***

Hubert was well aware of the effect he had upon people. If anything he relied upon it, did his best to accentuate it. He was dark, handsome, tall, and his irises had no pupils. He kept to the outdated fashion of plucking his eyebrows, purely because of how it unsettled people. At the officer’s academy, he had been constantly bemused by the attempts of Dorothea or Ferdinand to counsel him, to advise him on how to charm others, how to make friends. As if he needed such things. Perhaps it was better to be loved than feared, but Hubert had never had the time for it.

“I come seeking the one they call the Titan’s Bastard,” he insisted, leaning over the footman of the Second Sons company. “Inform him that the Black Eagles wish to speak with him.”

The footman scurried off and Hubert found himself smiling. A million miles away from any recognizable landmark they may be, but he still had his power of command. His fingers touched the side of the tome he wore attached to his belt. He had that too if the need arose.

As he waited he considered what he knew of the man he was about to approach. The leader of the Sons was a giant of a man, half a foot taller than Hubert himself, with a great long beard of reddish gold.  
The stories Hubert had heard around the city painted an evil picture. The man was a brigand, a braggart, and a fool of the worst description. Mero was his name, though most called him the Titan’s Bastard, or sometimes just ‘The Bastard.’ He had taken the Sons, an ancient and honorable company, and turned them into untrustworthy blackguards.

The Second Sons had not been allowed inside the city, for reasons obvious to anyone who knew of their recent history. The mercenaries had cultivated a reputation of atrocity and treachery. Desperate men hired them to lay waste to the peasantry of their enemies, to commit rape and murder against an entire kingdom.

For Hubert’s purposes, they were essentially perfect.

“The Bastard will see you now,” a footman stated. “He said he’ll have your head if you’re wasting his time.”

“How frightening.”

The tent of the Bastard was a rainbow swirl of a thousand colors. Hubert entered to find Mero completely naked, sitting on the side of a cot where two girls, slaves, were attempting to retain their modesty by wrapping themselves in silken sheets.

“Aw, I was hoping it was that pretty little mistress of yours that was coming,” Mero laughed. “Would have made the negotiations so much more enjoyable.” The giant rose to drink wine from a golden flute.

“Lady Edelgard has greater matters to attend to than negotiations with a coarse brigand,” Hubert replied. “As for me, I have matters to discuss that would best not be overheard by bedslaves.” Bedslaves. The word tasted like sulfur on his tongue. Hubert had long ago consigned his soul to the eternal flames, but he would not consider himself to bear any regrets so long as he was able to pull a few such as these with him.

The Bastard pulled the flute of wine from his lips. “You heard the fucker,” he said to the girls, “Get clear. I’d hoped to share both of you with a pretty Volantene wench, but that will have to wait.”

“You’ve seen the host of the Dragon Queen?” Hubert said. He did not allow himself to watch the women as they left. They were unimportant and he needed his focus. The Bastard had done this on purpose to unsettle him, to make him stare and stammer and blush. But Hubert could easily ignore such things. He had eyes for no man or woman save his Lady.

“Of course I have seen her host,” The Bastard said, laughing. “Ten thousand weak eunuchs wearing the same arms and armor that Ghis fought Valyria with thousands of years ago. They say the Unsullied do not route, but I would wager they still bleed, and bravery alone will not turn back our spears.” The Bastard reclined upon a chair, still naked as the day he was born, beard flowing over his chest like a river of flame.

“Ten thousand is still ten thousand,” Hubert replied, “Between the Sons and the Eagles we have less than a tenth their number, and as for the forces of Yunkai… I cannot imagine that fighting with chained feet makes for effective warriors.”

Three of the Wise Masters deployed their slave soldiers in just such a fashion. Hordes of dirty, chained farmers carrying spears and shields. They would be slaughtered like cattle at the first crush then fall flat on their faces and die. It was a contemptible, cowardly strategy, and a useless one as well. Any competent enemy could simply outflank you with their light cavalry, and the slave soldiers would be worse than useless. Some of the other Wise Masters showed greater intelligence. Yezzan’s soldiers had armor and were trained to fight. Paezhar zo Myraq had a hobby of breeding freaks and had a cohort of men in plate that stood nearly eight feet tall. Mallaza had hired skilled commanders from the whole world around to improve her armies. But even with these, the defenders of Yunkai who could actually stand their ground were less than three thousands.

“I knew you Eagles let yourself be led by a woman,” the Bastard slurred, “but I did not think you were all little girls. Heh. It seems even I can be proved wrong.”

He was drunk, Hubert realized. “I was wrong as well. I came seeking a man and found only a fattened pig. There is no point discussing strategy with beasts, and so I will leave.”

“Go back to hide behind your girl general’s skirts, then,” the Bastard cursed, “Or have her come here and see if she can’t persuade me with that pretty little mouth of hers.” Mero stuck his tongue out and grabbed at his crotch suggestively.

Black rage boiled within him at this filth’s insolence, but he could only smile, and say “I will be sure to convey your regards to Lady Edelgard.”

He took his leave, passing through the camp like a storm. The Sons would have been a fine ally for a time, but they would find a different solution. Already the wheels of Hubert’s mind were turning, considering. He spied Mero’s lieutenant, Ben Plumm, and wondered if the man might be induced to displace his master. He could not imagine that the Bastard’s habits did much to engender loyalty, nor did he think that the Sons would be so eager to fight the famed Unsullied that marched in the Dragon Queen’s army.

The Black Eagles had not been allowed within the Yellow City either, but their camp at least was clean, cleaner than the streets of the City, even. Yezzan had given them a walled plantation house to occupy, a building the locals called a manse. They had food, and soap, and even a small river, though they dared not drink from it or bathe in it, for the river flowed out from the city, and the city was always rife with plague.

Edelgard was speaking with Ferdinand when Hubert returned. Both turned at his approach.

“Ah, I thought I felt a chill breeze about the place,” Ferdinand said with a smile. “But I see it was only my dear friend Hubert.” Ferdinand hated Hubert, and the feeling was mutual.

“Whatever are you wearing such a ghastly smile for?” His Lady was to the point as ever. “I take it the mission to the Second Sons was a failure?”

Hubert bowed, “No. Not precisely. I did not even get so far as to make my offer. The Bastard is a fool, and I will enjoy killing him.”

Ferdinand shook his head and sighed. “You are no diplomat, Hubert. It should have been me who was sent.”  
Hubert chuckled darkly. Ferdinand had talent, but he was naive, sheltered, and lacking in composure. Mero would have made a fool out of him or provoked him into something rash. “It matters little. We can find another path forward.”

“Indeed,” His Lady stated. “The important diplomacy begins tonight. Queen Daenerys has sent us an invitation, and I will require both of your services.”


	4. Among Friends

Dany sipped fermented pomegranate from a silver flute as her servants attended her. She liked to fancy that the court she had formed was unlike any other in the world. Jorah of Bear Island stood to her alongside Grey Worm, Strong Belwas to her right with his elderly squire Arstan Whitebeard, and the free slave Missandei sat by the foot of her great chair. Barbarian, the Masters called her, and perhaps she was, with the pelt of a white lion draped over her bald head in place of hair, and her dragons playing about her shoulders like overlarge cats… but she did not lack for style or elegance.

Grazdan mo Eraz, the Wise Master of Yunkai who had been sent to treat with her had style of a different kind. His hair had been drawn up into a spike that protruded from his forehead like a unicorn’s horn, and his silken robes were lined with opals and sapphires and jade. Daenerys wondered whether she or he would be considered more ridiculous on the streets of Braavos.

“Take the gold, whore, and leave Yunkai be. Why should you break your armies upon the yellow walls of our great city, when you might be rich and have peace?”

Grazdan mo Eraz was a man who thought he could buy everything. No doubt he had bought and sold so many persons that he thought he could buy peace as well. But Daenerys had been bought once and she did not intend to be bought again.

“Your gold is mine,” Daenerys replied, her voice even. “Your pyramids and your wines and your temples are mine. You offer me nothing I cannot take from you, Grazdan mo Eraz, and then ask me to leave without offering me the one thing I desire. Free your slaves, Grazdan mo Eraz. Free them all and break their chains within the next three days and we will have peace.”

The Wise Master spat on the ground. “We will see how proud you are when your armies and destroyed and your court of bandits are made into slaves.”

“I am but a young girl and know little of the ways of war,” Daenerys replied, “But two thousand slaves of indifferent ability set against ten thousand unsullied seems to make for poor odds. I suppose we shall see the truth of it three days hence.”

“Astapor you took through deception,” Grazdan mo Eraz replied, “but you will not find Yunkai to be such easy prey. Or did you never consider that Astapor long-held forces as numerous as yours, and never succeeded in breaching our walls? We built our walls tall and we built them strong, whore. How will you breach them? Will you fly on the back of your paltry little pets?” He laughed aloud.

“Dracarys.”

Drogon belched forth a gout of flame near fifteen feet in length and the Master screamed. Not in pain, for he was not so near as to be burned, but in pure shock.

“You should not laugh at live dragons,” Daenerys said, rising from her seat and walking toward him. The Master pushed himself away from the flames that still played on the floor, before finally standing and attempting to regain some semblance of dignity. His efforts were wasted, as it was altogether too clear that he had soiled his robes. “Neither should you trifle with me, Grazdan mo Eraz. I am Daenerys Stormborn, the Breaker of Chains, and I have come to break you and yours.”

After such a statement, no agreement could be reached, and Grazdan mo Eraz retreated without another word. The Wise Masters had proved even more foolish than the Good Masters of Astapor, and Daenerys would be happy to put their tyranny to an end.

“My queen,” Jorah began, his voice uneasy, “We should have at least considered the Wise Master’s offer. Fifty thousand marks of gold is a kingly sum, a sum that could buy us ships, ships that could see you restored to your kingdom!”

“And what of those who follow us? Are you going to suggest we leave them behind? Are you going to call them ‘mouths with feet’ again in my presence?”

Jorah looked down, his eyes dark and angry. Three times he had raised this issue, and she had flatly refused him each time. Thousands of poor and beggared slaves had followed her from Astapor. Mother, they called her, and so Daenerys had become. She would never bear children of her own body again, she knew that for a truth, but she could at least live up to the trust that these people had placed in her.

“What of the others,” Daenerys questioned. “What of Mero and the Second Sons? What of the Black Eagles? Have they responded to our requests for parley?”

“It would be too soon to expect anything of the sort, My Queen,” Arstan replied. “Our runners will have only arrive at the enemy camp an hour ago.”

“They say that this Edelgard of Volantis rides a wyvern,” Daenerys said idly, “I had thought she might have arrived early. I would like to see the wyverns.”

Her courtiers chuckled warmly, and Daenerys felt ashamed. They were laughing at her for being a young girl who wanted to see the wyverns. That would not do. She was happy to play the foolish young girl for the benefit of the Ghiscari, but in front of her court should see her as strong and immovable. Her dragons curled around her neck, wings unfurled as if to hide her from laughing eyes.

“Strong Belwas is eager to be seeing these wyvern riders himself!” Belwas near-shouted. “He has seen beasts of every sort from every corner of the world, but never has he seen a man crazy enough to ride a wyvern!”

Arstan smiled indulgently. “Certainly, I am eager to see them as well, and not only for the spectacle of it. I am confident we can find victory against the slave soldiers of Yunkai, but these Black Eagles make me nervous. A group of their… nature should have a reputation, should have a history, but this Edelgard seems to have spawned from the streets of Volantis itself with gold and wyverns and soldiers complete.”

“Have you ever seen the Black Walls?” Jorah asked, his voice sharper than his question required. “Do you know what sort of city it is? It could hold twenty Edelgards and a thousand wyverns without it being anything of note.”

Not for the first time that evening, Dany felt her brow crease. The standing feud between Arstan and Jorah had become tiresome to her. Was it not enough for Jorah to have her ear, to know that she heeded his advice? But increasingly she felt as though he would tolerate her taking advice from no man except himself.

Sounds came from the antechamber. A disagreement. A fight? Every guard in Dany’s presence readied their weapon and looked between each other in confusion.

Finally, Irri entered, her face flush and angry. “There is another to see you here,” she stated hotly. “She claims to be the Volantene, the leader of the Black Eagles, and she says.”

A woman entered, mere moments behind Irri, and Daenerys’ heart lurched in her chest. Lilac eyes and whitened hair… she could have been Daenerys’ sister! But no. Daenerys’ skin had turned bronze in the Ghiscari sun, and her hair had never been that white. Edelgard (for who else could this be?) was a ghost by contrast, pale and drained of color. Thick plates of steel encased her entirely, and Daenerys found it to be a wonder the woman could move at all.

“I am Edelgard Von Hresvelg,” she stated the obvious, seemingly oblivious to the guards who had drawn their weapons around her.

“We guessed at that much,” Jorah growled, his anger obvious. “What I want to know is what makes you think you can come in here, unannounced and bearing arms?”

“What makes you think you can stop me?” The woman replied as if daring Jorah to strike her. Daenerys sat upright in her seat. Edelgard barely came up to the bear knight’s chest. Could she even wield that ax she wore on her back? The idea seemed laughable, and yet…

“Peace, Jorah,” Daenerys said. Jorah scowled and paced back to her side. She found herself immediately wishing that she could have seen them fight. But such amusements would keep for later. “Lady Edelgard was invited here with a promise of safe-conduct. We should be grateful that she has come so quickly.”

The tension in the room slackened a hairsbreadth. Edelgard did not step back or even bow, but she did give a slight nod. “I came quickly and came in secret. I have no interest in allowing my current employers to know that I am meeting with you.”

Her current employers. Daenerys smiled. She had expected that threats and promises would have to be made before any of the mercenaries switched sides but it seemed Edelgard was already aware that her arrangement would be temporary. Good.

“Then you are already aware of what I offer you?” Daenerys asked. “I mean to offer you a place in our army. Not because we need your aid to take Yunkai, after all, we outnumber the forces of the Yellow City five to one. I am a but a young girl and know little of the ways of war, but these seem like good odds to me, with or without your help.”

“But you don’t intend to stop at Yunkai, do you? You can’t mean to break the chains of Astapor and Yunkai and not go onto Mereen, and against them, you will need a much larger army than you currently field… and besides that, you’re a claimant to that distant western kingdom, aren’t you?”

Daenerys smiled. “You show more understanding than Grazdan mo Eraz did. If you would follow me as far as my throne in Westeros, I would see you and yours raised to positions of power in the Seven Kingdoms with Lordships and high honors.”

“I have no interest in titles.”

“Then what would you ask in exchange for your service.”

“I would ask you for an answer to a question that’s been troubling me for some time. I heard that you killed even the children of the Masters of Astapor, as young as ten years old. I heard that you spread their corpses over the wall for the sport of crows.” Edelgard paused. “Why did you do this?”

Her question surprised Daenerys, threatened to break her composure. She had not expected a mercenary to ask her about such a thing. The breaking of the chains at Astapor had been a glorious and great thing and she did not regret it even for a moment… but in the chaos of the slave rebellion, the Unsullied and others had taken her commands more literally than she had intended. In Astapor, as in Yunkai, every person of wealth owned slaves, and by necessity, some of them had been children. But she would acknowledge no weakness, show no doubt. Daenerys had promised that to herself long ago.

“These slavers have thick heads, and I cannot make them see reason without violence,” Daenerys said, “Even now when I am at their gates with ten thousand Unsullied, they mock me, seek to buy me off with chests of gold. They call me a whore, they call me as if I were a bedslave and not a Khaleesi. I was not lenient in Astapor, in hope that I might be merciful in Yunkai, and in Mereen, and in all of the places I go to next.”

“What it sounded like was that the situation got out of hand,” Edelgard replied. “I am willing to support your cause to an extent, but not if your goals remain so openly bloodthirsty.”

“Things are different now. I have an army, and so I may choose to show mercy.” Daenerys said, “I will take Yunkai and I will force the masters to release their slaves, but I will not slaughter them to the last man as I did in Astapor. I have shown myself to be ruthless when tested, now I will show that I can be merciful in victory as well.”

“My Queen,” Jorah urged, his voice low and harsh, “This woman is from Volantis, which is nearly as much the heart of slavery as this place, and she looks to be of the Old Blood. I promise you that slaves have waited on her hand and foot since the day she was born. Do not trust her.”

Daenerys nodded as if in agreement, but in her heart she had already resolved to trust the mercenary. The woman was strong, she could feel that. Strong and refined and intelligent. If she was loyal, she would stand with Jorah and Belwas and Arstan and Missandei around her throne. Jorah always counseled her against trust, but she needed allies.

“If your retainer has anything he wishes to ask me,” Edelgard stated, “He can ask me himself.”

“We have heard you are of Volantis,” Daenerys asked. “Is this true? You must understand that as far as we know you and your entire mercenary company seem to have sprung from a hole in the earth. We are curious as to who you are and why you seem so eager to join us.”

Edelgard’s eyebrows rose. “I could say much the same to you. The last scion of a failed dynasty, coming into an army of ten thousand and hatching eggs of creatures that have never been seen before in a hundred years? That’s the sort of thing that… that people write songs about.”

“But since you asked, I will answer: I am not of Volantis. Any resemblance I bear to the people of that region is purely coincidental. I found myself near Volantis by accident several moons ago but you would not recognize the name of the nation from which I hail. My story is a long one, and I have journeyed far. For the moment it is sufficient to say that I despise slavery and that I have come this far only because I believe in your ambition.”

“And this is where she lists her demands,” Jorah muttered, just loud enough for Daenerys to hear him. “The talk of high ideals always comes just be-”

“What would you ask of me, in return?” Daenerys stated, interrupting Jorah before he could say more.

“Yunkai.” She stated flatly.

Arstan, Jorah, and Belwas all shared a hearty chuckle.

“Just that?” Jorah asked, “You ask only for the city of Yunkai as your personal fiefdom?”

Belwas slapped his belly as he laughed, “Strong Belwas should have been bolder when negotiating for his pay!”

Edelgard seemed little perturbed by their laughter, her lilac eyes bearing down on them with the force of a battering ram. One by one Daenerys’ court ceased their mockery, and then she spoke.

“When you take the city, you will make them give up their slaves. You will break the chains… and then what? What follows? You will leave this place and go onto Mereen, go on to that Western Kingdom you claim to be rightfully yours... and these Wise Masters will still be wealthy, they will still be powerful. They will still have the gold and the steel, and the loyalties of their slave soldiers. They will swiftly seize power again and forge new chains. When all is done, nothing will be any different than it was before you came.”

“I can change that. The Black Eagles can change that. We can stay in the city, and keep the chains broken, keep Yunkai free of oppression and slavery.”

Jorah scoffed. “You are a sellsword. Do not act as though you would rule Yunkai out of some sense of benevolence. And even if we did believe you, your company numbers only a few hundred. Do you take us for fools? A force your size could never hold the Yellow City!”

“My force is capable of taking and holding Yunkai,” said Edelgard, “If you will give me only a little support I can prove it to you.”

Daenerys leaned forward. “How?”

“Defeat the enemy in front of the walls, and I will bring the Wise Masters out through the gate to stand judgment before you.”


	5. Through the Night

“Is everything prepared?”

Hubert nodded. He was not smiling now. He seemed at ease and calm. That was a good sign. Hubert had always been her strong left hand, her stalwart retainer, willing to do anything and everything to help her achieve her ambitions. If he felt at ease on this, the night of battle, it was a sign that every possible problem had been accounted for.

They were standing on the great pyramid of Yezzan, looking over the city as the fires from a thousand houses twinkled in the light, a warm reflection of the cold stars overhead. The Yellow City was beautiful at night when shadows hid the blood and refuse that flowed freely in the streets. It was enough to make Edelgard homesick, if only for a moment

“I like to think of this as a practice run,” Hubert said, his voice excited and energetic despite the late hour. “When we return, we will have to deal with my father and Duke Aegir. By comparison, this petty empire won’t be much of a challenge, but still, it should prove most instructive.”

Edelgard sighed. Every thought of home filled her with worry. Her father might be dead by now. Arundel might have made his move without her. The Professor might be… She scowled and sealed away that thought from her mind. “Everyone knows their duty?”

“We only await the dragon queen’s signal.”

Edelgard took a moment to center herself. The hours since her interview with the dragon queen had been filled with activity and struggle and it would be many hours more until she could safely rest. Was it morning yet, or did this still qualify as night? She could not say.

The dragon queen had been different from what she had expected. She had expected a bloody-handed tyrant, a slave who had crawled up from the gutter and forged a loyal army of brave companions through her own will and charisma. Edelgard had expected a figure like Wilhelm von Hresvelg or Loog or… or herself she supposed. Instead she had found a pampered, naive princess, who put on airs and filled her court with lickspittles.

I should not dismiss her so quickly, she reminded herself. The Breaker of Chains had seen her people through terrible times, and come out intact. The stories of her, of how she had burned the sorcerers of Qarth, of how she had survived crossing the Red Wastes… all of it was true, and that only made her seeming lack of conviction all the stranger. From what well of strength did the girl pull her power?

Her advisors? Edelgard dismissed that notion immediately. Her advisors had scarcely spoken during their counsel, except for that oaf Jorah Mormont. Most of them had not even been with her in the trek across the red waste. They were glorified bodyguards, brutes that had little utility beyond violence. Edelgard’s thoughts on the matter refused to clarify, refused to settle on any one explanation. For the moment Daenerys would remain a mystery.

A star rose from the distant camp of the Unsullied, a fiery comet springing from the ground to signal the advance of the Dragon Queen. The Queen’s plan was both simple and effective. She had delivered an ultimatum to the Yunkish Masters, that she would attack if they did not free their slaves in three days, but the offer was a farce. She would attack at dawn on the first day, and crush them when they least expected it.

This made things easier for Edelgard as well, as no one would question why so many of her troops were in the city when the attack began. Rather, they would not question why until it was too late.

Hubert and she both sprang into action the moment the flare rose into the sky. The heavy pavise troop filed in behind them as they walked. Chaos ruled the moment in the pyramid of Qaggaz, with servants running in every direction bearing food and weapons and barrels of oil. No one minded them or stopped them until they were almost to the palace itself.

Yezzan mo Qaggaz’s palace at the top of the pyramid was the height of decadence. A building of nine sides that had stood for five hundred years with a bronze harpy perched upon the peak of every one of the hundreds of windows, and a golden harpy on every gable.

“Halt!” A line of five guards blocked the entrance to the house, armored in plates of etched steel and armed with halberds and curved swords. These men were slave soldiers, but paid and fed like royalty and raised from birth to defend their master with their lives. ‘My immortals,’ Yezzan had called them, and in the few days that Edelgard had been able to observe them, she had acquired begrudging respect for their fervor and skill at arms.

There was nothing she hated more than human virtue bound in dominion to an evil cause.

“Halt!” the Immortal captain repeated. “You are not permitted into the great Yezzan’s quarters, mercenary.”

“I am no slave, immortal. I go where I will.”

“You go no further than this.” The Immortals brandished their halberds and formed a half-circle around the door, light from the torches glinting off the gilding on their weapons and armor. For five hundred years immortals like these had guarded the palace door atop the pyramid. For five hundred years new baby boys had been purchased, branded, chained, and trained at arms until they were the envy of Ghis.

Hubert ended their legacy with a gesture.

Black smoke rose from between the flagstones of the entryway, forming into shadowy claws that clutched at the Immortals’ lungs and forced them, choking, to the earth. They lay, convulsing on the ground as their flesh melted away. “Sorcery!” the servants cried, “Shadowbinder!” All fled from them as they walked over the bodies of the Immortals and into the palace itself. Other guards were rallying now, forming up just past the doorway. Twenty or thirty men, lightly armed and armored, likely stirred from their beds to fight against the dragon queen in the field.

Edelgard and the pavise company pushed through them without slowing. Light swords and spears bounced off her armor as she advanced. She pushed a man onto his back with her shield and then crushed his chest with her armored boot. Her crests were burning, signing within the heat of battle, and she felt truly invincible.

The slaves broke before she had pushed through even half their number. Yezzan slept on the main floor of the palace, and Edelgard had intentionally memorized the route to his quarters. Two more immortals awaited them at the entrance to his chambers, and Hubert ended them with little ceremony.

The door was a great oaken thing with carved panels that depicted the glorious history of the Qaggaz line. Edelgard’s armored foot reduced it to splinters with a single kick.

A crossbow bolt pinged off her armor, clattering in the hallway behind her. A slim purple-haired youth held the crossbow, and their face fell in dismay as they realized that their one shot had been wasted.

“Sweets,” Edelgard stated, remembering the slave’s name. “Stand down. I have no intention of killing you or your master.” Not yet, at any rate.

“I am happy to hear that,” Yezzan’s voice came from just beyond the antechamber. Edelgard and Hubert pressed forward to find him lounging amidst a great pile of pillows, covered only by a thin silk sheet that was soaked with sweat.

“You betrayed the terms of our arrangement,” Yezzan said, his voice full of hurt and betrayal. Edelgard rolled her eyes.

“It’s your city’s own fault for relying on mercenaries as the bulk of your military force. Anyway, you should be glad that I turned my coat. I negotiated terms with the dragon queen that will allow you to live through the night.”

Yezzan sighed. “She destroys my city and prolongs my suffering and asks me to thank her.”

Edelgard turned on her heel and walked out to the ante-chamber, into the hallway and beyond, to the reception hall of the palace itself. Servants ran from her as she passed among them, but for the most part, she paid them no mind. Her pavise company had already spread throughout the building, covering each of the exits that they had mapped out ahead of time, so she had no fear of Yezzan’s wealth being looted by unfaithful servants

...other than herself, of course.

The Courtyard outside the palace was teeming with life, nearly a hundred men and women gathered on top of the great pyramid of Qaggaz, armed with spears and knives and staves. There was a man among them attempting to rally them, to organize them.

“Am I a dog that you have come here to chase me off with sticks and stones?” She called aloud, her crests burning again as they increased the power in her lungs. “Lay down your feeble weapons and you will be spared.”

The leader turned to face her. He stood only a little taller than Edelgard herself, thin and sharp like a folding knife, with the red-black hair distinctive to the Ghiscari and a carefully trimmed beard bound up in golden wire.

“We have three hundred here!” He spat. “You cannot hold against us! Deliver Yezzan to his people!”

“You have rabble,” Edelgard countered, “And after the first fifty die trying to break through our armor with sticks, perhaps they will reconsider how much they truly love their Wise Master.”

“Yezzan is a great man. These and more will happily die for him.”

“Will they kill him too? For the moment Yezzan lives, and I have no intention of killing him. That may change depending on what you choose next.”

The crowd wavered. These were not soldiers, were not even particularly well-off slaves, for the most part. These were servants, for whom praising Yezzan’s greatness had become as natural and necessary as breathing. They had never expected to die for their master, not in this way… and perhaps even such blinkered rabble as these could sense that the winds had shifted.

“The past is dead,” Edelgard continued, her voice growing more powerful with each passing moment. “The past is dead and I have killed it. Already the Dragon Queen’s forces are at the gates, and before long they will be allowed in, ten thousand Unsullied who fight as free men, not as slaves. Break off your chains and rejoice that you live in such times as these! Rejoice that your children will grow old in a city without chains!”

The leader’s eyes grew wide with horror as he realized that her words had found purchase in the crowd around him. “B-but what of Yezzan?” he cried, “What assurances of his continued health and life-”

Hubert appeared from behind her, dragging the purple-haired Sweets with him. “Tell them,” Hubert commanded, his voice low and dark.

Sweets swallowed and nodded, “The Great Yezzan is as well as he can be, though… in great distress.”

The leader of the group deflated, and opened his mouth to speak…

But before any words came out, a great rush of wind interrupted him as Ferdinand Von Aegir descended from above on Wyvernback. He leapt to the ground before his beast had even landed, and with some chagrin, Edelgard realized that he had flown in on the wyvern she had tamed herself. Damn that bastard and his smug grin, she thought, he did that on purpose.

“Hold them here,” she ordered Hubert, and gestured for Ferdinand to follow her indoors.

“Well?” She demanded, as soon as they were out of earshot.

“I have succeeded completely in the mission you laid out for me, as expected,” Ferdinand began. “However, a complication has arisen, which...”

“Get to the point.”

“Mero and a loyal band of Second Sons captains seized the gatehouse,” Ferdinand stated, deflating as he said it.

“So go in and kill him.”

“I would do that happily, but he has something like thirty servants in there with him. Women and… and children. He’s holding them hostage. I attempted to challenge him to single combat, but...” Ferdinand’s expression grew dark and angry, “He demanded to fight with the leader of the company only. I weighed my options and determined it would be swiftest to send for you.”

Edelgard rubbed the side of her temple with the palm of her mailed gauntlet. “This is the Fish Gate, I assume? The one gate we need to let Daenerys in the city?”

“Just the one, Edelgard.”

“Give me the wyvern. You’re in charge here.”

“With Hubert?” Ferdinand sputtered, and Edelgard checked herself. He had a point. Ferdinand and Hubert hated each other and fought constantly. Leaving both of them in charge of a key location like this was folly in the extreme. Yet she could not back down from her standing order.

“Hubert will come with me,” she said, walking out into the courtyard again. “Hubert, there’s a situation at the gate, and I need you there with me.”

“Flying.” Hubert smiled tightly. “Joy.”

Edelgard climbed into the saddle and offered him a hand up. “I’ll do the flying, all you have to do is not fall off.”

Hubert climbed uneasily in behind her and wrapped his arms in a death grip about her waist. With effort, she resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Honestly. The most dangerous man in Adrestia and yet he can’t stomach a trivially short flight? Edelgard snapped the reins and the wyvern leapt into the night sky.

She picked up speed, arcing the wyvern down the side of the pyramid, so close the beast’s talons nearly scraped against the stonework, pulling up just before they crashed into the streets at the base. Sometimes Edelgard thought that she was never truly alive except when in flight, with cool air rushing over her, draining away the excess heat of her crests. Her crests… She was one of the few that knew their true origin, the source of their power. Crests were the imprint left by draconic blood on a human body. Was that why she adored flight so much? Some draconic instinct coming to the fore?

The city below her had fallen to chaos. Looting, warfare, and fire ruled the night as every man laid hold of what he could before the fall of the city. Men and women and children were crying in fear or rage, and Edelgard could not tell the difference. It mattered little in the end. This time of trial was just the ebb and flow of history, the changing of the tides. It would hurt for many in the present, but she would see to it that the future would make it worthwhile. Better to die in an inferno than a cage. She knew enough of flames and cages to know that much to be true.

She landed at the Fish Gate like a meteor fallen from heaven, crashing to a halt amidst her Eagles on the inward side of the gate and vaulting over the wyvern’s head as she landed. Someone - it was Dorothea - tried to speak with her but Edelgard did not pause or look to the side.

“MERO!” She screamed, her crests still running hot and pulsing with power. “MERO! Come out and die, you coward! Come out and face me or die hiding behind a child!”

The Titan’s Bastard appeared at the balcony, his eyes fierce and his beard practically aflame in the torchlight. He wore a suit of plated mail of a sort Edelgard had never seen, blackened steel with silver panels.

“Ha! There is the whore of Volantis! Come to have a taste of my sword, have you?” he rushed down the stairs, cutting the air with a long thin blade. “Come now! What do I get if I win, eh? Mayhap I’ll get your head mounted and stuffed to show to the whores I take to bed, eh?”

“I won’t be the one losing my head here today,” Edelgard stated.

Mero feinted left and struck from the right, cutting in around her guard and taking advantage of his superior reach. She sidestepped the blow and pushed into him with her shield in an attempt to force him off his feet. Instead, he simply stepped back and circled her, leering and twirling his sword in the air. Edelgard’s Black Eagles were gathered around her in a circle, but Edelgard ignored them. She could not lead them if she did not take the front in every battle. No matter what, she had to win this without their aid.

She pushed in, he circled her, light on his feet. He taunted her, jeered at her, called her by every cursed name she had ever heard and then some. Whore. Bitch. Cunt. The words washed over her like wind. I will be called worse than that by better men than you, she thought, and leapt forward, throwing her greatshield in his face.

He stepped back, and dodged to the side, thrusting at her with his full weight behind it. The blade cut through the joint between her shoulder and chest where the armor was weaker, cutting deep into her body. Mero howled with glee as the blade struck true, bright white teeth flashing amidst the roaring flame of his beard.

She knocked every tooth from his head with a single blow of her mailed gauntlet. Then she crushed his knee with a kick. The Titan fell, a bloody mess amidst the cobblestones. “Wah...” he said, “Whah ahr oo?”

The fire of her crests burned to a fever pitch and she found herself screaming, putting both of her hands to the haft of her ax and bringing it down upon the man’s helm with such fury that she split him from head to groin.

Silence reigned. Edelgard grabbed the hilt of the sword still stuck in her chest and pulled it free from her body with a grunt of pain. The theatrics of taking the enemy sword could have been avoided, she knew. She could have exhausted him, or crushed him with her wyvern, or simply asked her mages to kill him. But tiring him out would have taken time she did not have, and allowing another to kill him would have shown weakness she could not afford to show. In the end, as in the beginning, there had only been one path for her to take.

Healers rushed to her side, Dorothea and Flayn among them, but they were unnecessary. Already the Crest of Flames was healing her, closing the wound and restoring the lost blood. Tomorrow there would be no sign of where the blade had torn through her lung. The rend in the armor would prove a greater difficulty than the cut in her flesh.

“Take the gate,” she rasped, blood filling her mouth as she talked. “Take the gate and let the Queen enter the city.”

Dorothea nodded and left without a word, taking Flayn with her, and finally Edelgard allowed herself to slump.

“You take too many risks, my Lady.” Hubert wore his tight smile still, the smile reserved for when he was truly furious.

“I didn’t get stabbed in the chest to have this argument with you again.”

“If you will not take steps to safeguard yourself, then I will,” Hubert replied, a dangerous edge to his voice.

“What steps would those be? Do you mean to lock me in a tower?” She replied, her voice icy. Hubert’s father and Ferdinand’s had done just that to her whole family. Well, not a tower. More like a cage in the dungeon from which only Edelgard had survived of all her siblings.

Hubert said nothing, only breathed in and then out again. When he opened his eyes his face was calm and relaxed, no hint of his corpse smile. “I only mean that I would have intervened in your duel, Lady Edelgard. I believe your insistence on fighting on the front lines is foolhardy, but I cannot prevent it.”

Edelgard sighed. The power of the crests was flowing away from her now, receding like the tide and leaving only weariness in its place. She had grown tired, and yet the work of the day had only just begun. “I am sorry, Hubert. I should not have said that.”

Hubert only looked away toward the now-opening gate. The ancient doors had been built of heavy timber and bronze in some distant century, and they creaked unwillingly as they prepared to welcome their conqueror.

“Linhardt notified me of his success,” Hubert said suddenly. “He is bringing Ghazdor zo Ahlaq and Grazdan mo Eraz to us.”

“And Caspar?”

“No word, but I expect success.”

Edelgard ran a mental tally. Qaggaz, Eraz, Ahlaq, Yunzak, and Faez would all be captured then. Melazza and Myraq and Rhaezn had been with the army and Daenerys would capture them. All in all, it was more than half the Wise Masters of the city captured, along with their pyramids and all their treasure. Would it be enough? She looked out to the approaching ranks of Unsullied.

It would have to be.


	6. To the Morrow

Daenerys Targaryen Stormborn, the Breaker of Chains, held court amidst the plaza atop the Great Pyramid of Yunzak in the city of Yunkai. From here she could see all the city below, spread about below her like a table set for a feast. The Yellow City, Yunkai was called. The Queen of Cities. Braavos had been called that too, though it seemed almost ridiculous to compare the two. If Yunkai was a queen, she was an old and withered Queen Dowager, a city that had seen its prime a thousand years ago and had nothing but regret and crumbling yellow stones to show for it. Try as the Wise Masters might to paint and whitewash their pyramids, they could no more hide the decay than face powder could undo old age.

“My Queen,” Jorah stated, his manner uneasy. “My queen, we must speak of what is to be done with this city, we must-”

“I have already spoken of these things, Ser Jorah. We will leave the city in the care of the Black Eagles.”

“My Queen,” Jorah repeated, “This woman, she is a sellsword. A sellsword of Volantis who claims to be from some distant unheard-of land. What she says of slavery and of your ideals, and of believing in you, these are all lies.”

“And who else should I leave in charge of this city?” Daenerys asked. “You?”

Jorah bowed his head. “My place is by your side, my queen, for as long as you will have me. But my advice remains unchanged. Leave this entire conquest behind you. Take what gold you can and buy ships to take us home.”

“And my answer to you remains the same. Until we can provide for all these former slaves, all these who call me mother and depend upon me, we will not leave Slaver’s Bay.”

“My Queen, I...”

His voice trailed off as Edelgard stepped out from behind a column. The sellsword wore black and gold plate armor with a cape of red streaming behind. The armor consisted of interlocking plates after the fashion of Westerosi armor but had been formed to match a woman’s shape. Daenerys wondered if she might commission such a set for herself, once they had arrived in Mereen. 

“Speaking ill of me to the Queen again, Jorah?”

Jorah’s expression turned so sour that Daenerys wanted to laugh, but she restrained herself and instead said, “Ser Jorah is my most trusted advisor, Edelgard. He has my permission to speak his council frankly… permission I also extend now to you, as Captain-General of the Black Eagles.”

“Queen Daenerys,” Edelgard stated, bowing her head slightly. “As you know, I and my Eagles have not slept since we took the city yesterday. I can happily report that the city is wholly yours.” She produced a satchel from her side and spilled the contents onto the floor below, a rain of golden brooches, each shaped into the form of a hawk’s talons. “The commanders of the Yunkish army call themselves the Honored Hawks, and before yesterday each of them bore a brooch like one of these. Other than the five Hawks who fled with Grazdan, every commander has surrendered his brooch or had it taken from him. The gates are yours, the pyramids are yours, and the Second Sons are yours as well.”

“You give us brooches and say you have accounted for the officers,” Jorah replied hotly, “But what of the Wise Masters themselves? We executed a score of the Masters yesterday, but there are others you are hiding. Where is Yezzan, where is Mallazza? Where is Paezhar?”

“In custody.”

“‘In custody in their palaces, surrounded by all their comforts?” Jorah laughed and turned back to Daenerys, “My Queen, consider: These Wise Masters, they are not allies except of convenience. They hate each other, as much or more than they hate you. This sellsword means to keep her favorites among the Masters alive while we kill all their rivals, and then when they are gone, she will put them back into their lofty positions and enslave all those you have freed.”

“If the Queen wishes to execute Yezzan or any of the others,” Edelgard said, her lips curling into a slight frown, “I have no opposition to the notion. They’re relics of an outdated way of life. I merely thought they would be more useful alive than dead, on account of how easy they are to control. Malazza is a young, brash fool, Paezhar is proud and stupid, and Yezzan cannot move from his rooms without twelve strong men to carry him.”

“And how do you find these Masters ‘useful’?” Jorah was pacing now, circling the sellsword like a cat circling a mouse. “What would you do if the Queen were to call these Masters for execution now?”

“My Queen, is there anything you require of me?” Edelgard said, staring straight ahead as though Jorah did not exist. “My forces and I are tired.”

“You have done well,” said Daenerys, smiling despite herself. “And justly deserve your promised reward.” Jorah bristled at that, but Daenerys ignored him. Edelgard had upheld her end of the bargain handsomely. Who could argue otherwise? But beyond considerations of payment and service… the woman intrigued Daenerys. Given control over a great city, what would she do? What could she accomplish?

“Is there anything more you would wish to ask of me?” Dany tried to appear aloof, disinterested, but in her heart, she knew that she would answer almost any request in the affirmative. Jorah’s eyes looked up to judge her.

“I ask for no favors,” Edelgard said, sighing. “I have everything I want. If there are concerns as to my loyalty to your cause... A few hundred of your Unsullied would help me hold the city, and you could put them under the command of someone you trust. I could send a few of my captains with you to assist you, and also to act as… well, as hostages if we are being completely blunt.”

Grey Worm had been standing quietly to the side for now but at the mention of his forces, his eyes rose to meet hers. A moment of understanding passed between them and then he nodded slightly in acquiescence. 

“But of course,” Daenerys said, looking back to Edelgard. “Yunkai must not fall back into the hands of the Wise Masters.” 

She had no desire to repeat the mistakes she made in Astapor. News from the Red City had followed them to the Yellow City, and little of it had been good. The Council she had placed in charge of the city had proved weak and easily divided. The city had already fallen. Cleon ruled the city now, claiming that the priest, healer, and scholar Daenerys had left in charge had meant to turn the city over to the Good Masters. This message confounded her, as she had thought that she had killed every last one of the Good Masters.

Regardless, Yunkai would be different.

She had to believe that.  
\---

The Grand Archives of Qaggaz lay in the bowels of a lesser pyramid. The chambers were long and low and sunless, lit dimly by candles set upon the reading tables. Scribe slaves toiled endlessly here in the gloom, writing missives, copying letters, and cataloging the flow of goods. Flayn resisted the urge to yawn. They had been pushing hard for more than a full day at this point, and now Hubert wanted them to tour the Archives? Some part of Flayn felt resentment at that. Some part of her wished she could lay down and sleep... but another part of her felt the urgency, the need to set the city in order as much as possible. Everyone was doing their best, and she was determined not to be left behind.

She had Linhardt with her at least, and he had an uncharacteristically happy and energetic demeanor. If that was because he was in a new library, or because he had been secretly napping throughout the whole day previous, she could not tell. Either way, she was glad to have him by her side.

Her other companion, she appreciated less. He had introduced himself as Tekl, the Humble Hand of Qaggaz, and Flayn had the disturbing impression that the man had not been outside in the sun for years, possibly decades. He had a long, sallow face framed by hair that had gone white ages ago. Flayn had been given to understand that he was the most senior of the slave-scribes, a sort of senior archivist.

“This is the Great Chamber,” he stated, his voice dead and without enthusiasm. “Qaggaz controls the docks, and as we serve…” He sighed. “As we serve Captain-General Edelgard, who rules from the Great Pyramid of Qaggaz, we keep track of all that comes in and out of the city. Wine, spice, silk, dyes, grain… every pound of every good worth tracking is tracked here.” 

Flayn and Linhardt had led a force to secure the Archives on the night they took the city. Hubert had stressed that the records here would be critical to keeping and running the city efficiently. Flayn had not known why the records were so critical, but she had no desire to question Hubert’s strategy, so she and Linhardt had taken it. It had honestly been a simple task. The scribes resented their presence, but they had not resisted actively.

But still, Tekl and his slave-scribes resented their intrusion. Flayn could feel their eyes on her, eyes filled with anger and fear. Guards had been posted at every corner of the great chamber,

“But this is not merely a place of business, correct?” Linhardt asked. “There are other records here? Rare tomes? Excerpts of old lore?”

Their guide sighed. “Lower down. I imagine you are looking for goods you can sell? Even our rarer books will sell for little, I am afraid. Many of the oldest are also the least valuable. Books of sorcery that never yielded any use to those who attempted them. Histories neither true nor entertaining… We can-”

“I have no intention of selling any books,” Linhardt replied, his tone almost offended. “I wish to read them. Or have them read to me if I do not know the language.”

Tekl turned and regarded Linhardt with a raised brow. “You fancy yourself a sorcerer, Captain?”

Flayn almost laughed. Throughout the day men had been running and shrieking in terror from the simplest of magic, but somehow the story had not spread to this sheltered clerk. It was not funny, not really, but she laughed anyway.

“Well,” Linhardt began, “I am not familiar with your terminology. I am a student of-”

Flayn interrupted him by drawing forth a spell. Only a touch, only the smallest fraction of her power, but in the dim light of the archive-room, the glow of her weakest spell might as well have been a flare, turning the whole of the chamber green and casting shadows across every wall.

All movement on the floor of the Grand Chamber halted, and Flayn felt every slave-scribe turned to gawk at her.

Tekl staggered back. “You… you both are… what are you?” Flayn laughed. She could not help herself. 

“We are both mages,” Linhardt sighed, dispelling Flayn’s spell. “Or sorcerers. Whichever you prefer. As I stated earlier, Captain-General Edelgard is aware of the importance of what you do and would like your work to continue smoothly. We will be overseeing your work, but we are also here to further our studies.”

Unstated was the hope that they would uncover some explanation for the terrible magic that had brought them here in the first place, some explanation for how they might go back. If she were honest, it was a fool’s hope, and Flayn feared that they would not achieve it within any of her friends’ lifetimes… but she would help them as best she could for as long as they or their children lived. 

Tekl bowed deeply. “My apologies, Maegi. I had not… understood. You will require us to…” a tight, pained smile stretched across his face. “You will require us to assist in your research?”

“Naturally. We don’t wish to disrupt your normal activities, but we will require ink, paper, and access to your scrolls. And beyond material needs, we’ll also need assistants, translators...”

“Blood?” Tekl asked.

Linhardt’s eyebrows shot up. “No! But it’s extremely interesting that you would expect us to ask for such a thing!”

\---

Yezzan Mo Qaggaz sat in his quarters, slowly sweating to death. The Wise Master of Yunkai looked like a bloated corpse on a good day, but today was not a good day. With less than a third his usual retinue of servants, he had been left to sit in his filth, sweat, and piss soaking into the cushions he reclined upon. He must have been a massive man in his youth, she realized. Even now, reclining on his cushions he did not need to look up to meet her gaze.

The purple-haired servant from earlier, the one named Sweets, remained by Yezzan’s side as Edelgard entered, dark-circled eyes glaring down at her with naked hate. There would be many like this one, she realized. Slaves who had profited from the old system as much as their masters had. She understood their loyalty, even respected it to an extent, but the old way had to go, had to be burned away so that the new could flourish.

“Have you come to kill me?” Yezzan asked, almost without interest.

“I’ve come to make you an offer.”.

“An offer?” Yezzan laughed without mirth. “What can you offer a dying man? What do I care if I live or die?”

“I do not mean to threaten you with death. You are more useful alive. Many of your former slaves remain loyal to an extent, and so long as you live as my captive, that loyalty is mine to command. But I have come to offer you a more active role. As you know, the Dragon Queen intends to leave me as Governor of Yunkai, and there are some matters on which I could use your advice.”

The words felt like blasphemy on her lips. By rights the entirety of the old caste should have been swept away, made to beg on the streets with those they despised. But Yunkai was too large, too expansive for any one person to command. She had always known she would have to make compromises, and she had worked with worse than the Wise Masters. For her purposes, Yezzan was essentially perfect. Of all the Wise Masters, he was the most capable and the easiest to control. Even better, if the obese man seized a measure of power back to himself, he would not live for long and he had no clear successor. 

Yezzan regarded her with suspicion. “You want me to explain the politics of my city, to tell you where the richest treasures are stored, what treaties we have with our neighbors...”

“I can rule without you, but the people will suffer less if the transition is smooth, and I can make your days pass more comfortably than they otherwise would.”

Yezzan’s great yellow eyes sparked with something then, something like defiance. “Do you think me soft? I have been dying for as long as you have been living, enduring great pain every day of my life in hopes that the morrow would bring some new, wonderful thing… but should I live longer, all I should see is Yunkai’s end. There is no pain that would be worse to me, than being a part of the destruction of my city.

“I was not always so large, so pathetic. You are destroying everything I worked to uphold, and I will not be a part of it.”

Edelgard laughed. “You are viler than I had thought! I destroy nothing but the chains that hold back your people.”

“Phah! It is like reasoning with a child. Chains do not hold us back. They hold us together, hold us up. Slavery, I do not care for this thing in and of itself. It is nothing to me. But why is it that you think slavery persisted here in the bay of Ghis? It is because men require order, require direction, to survive. Valar Doheris, they said in Valyria. All men must serve. You and your Queen, you claim to be heroes, saviors, but all I see are tyrants who seek to lead my sheep astray with false promises of freedom.”

Edelgard closed her eyes, willing herself to be calm. The day had been long and she was too tired to deal with ignorant, close-minded, fools. But what else had she expected? Yezzan the Great had been born to luxury in the Bay of the Slavers, raised to believe his rightful place was at the pinnacle of creation. He claimed to be a man of many travels, but how far had he gone? Volantis? Lys? He might have traveled a thousand miles and never seen a kingdom of free men. She wished she could show him Enbarr or even Fhirdiad. Show him the clean streets, the frescoes, the Cathedral of Seiros...

No. She would show him a people without chains.

She met his eyes with her own. “To hell with your chains,” she said, “Humans do not need them. They are not sheep, are not cattle. Look around you. Do you consider your city wealthy? Prosperous? You ask me why slavery has persisted so long here? I might ask you the same question, as the buildings of the city crumble into ruin around you. Yunkai is as much a corpse as you are, and nothing but the most drastic of changes can save it.”

Yezzan blinked, his mouth opening slightly. “You truly believe this,” he said, his voice uncertain.

A snarl of anger raged through her. “Did you think me a liar? I will drag this sorry excuse for a city into a golden age and I will make you live to see it. I won’t let you die until you admit the idiocy of the outdated system that you have profited from for so many years now.”

Yezzan’s great mouth closed, and he blinked again. “If that is truly your goal,” he said, his voice hoarse, “then I should love to see it.”


	7. In Preparation

“Make Way! Make way for the Captain General! Make way for High Governor Hresvelg!”

Tens of thousands called Yunkai home, and if this city had been in Fodlan it would be among the largest on the continent. But Edelgard could not find it in herself to compare Yunkai to Fhirdiad or Enbarr or Derdriu. There were no wide plazas, no canals, no aqueducts... only narrow streets and dirty markets huddled in the shadows of great pyramids that towered over everything and hid away the sun. The setting sun turned the yellow city into a city of reds and oranges and blacks, defined as much by shadow as by the light.

“I am finding this city beautiful,” Petra stated from where she rode beside Edelgard. “I was not realizing this until very recently.”

Edelgard blinked, realizing with surprise that she agreed with Petra. The city stank, shit ran in the streets, and every open space was cramped and archaic… but still, life persisted here. So much life, and all of it wonderful. Old men selling silks, dyers bargaining for seashells, a wineseller calling aloud for men to sample his wares…. So much decay, and so much beauty, like flowers blooming in rotted wood. 

“The city has grown on me,” Edelgard admitted, “But every time I look, I see only more work, only more change that needs to be wrought. Who built that wall? What purpose does it serve? Why are its gates so narrow? I can’t look anywhere in this city without seeing something broken and old-fashioned.”

She could not wait for Hubert to return from his diplomatic mission with their nominal ‘Queen.’ With him gone she felt as though her left arm had been severed… But nobody else was suitable for the task. Ferdinand was too dangerous to leave so far from her reach, Caspar was too simple, Bernadetta was hopeless, Dorothea was… perfect for the task, but Edelgard did not trust her enough. Not yet.

“There are many things which could be better,” Petra agreed, “But we must be ignoring them. We will be going home too soon.”

Edelgard’s lips parted slightly. Yes, they would be going home. She had to believe that. But where would that leave Yunkai? She supposed she would need to do as she planned in the empire. She needed to create a state with strong enough institutions that it could select a new ruler without bloodshed or birthright. Not for the first time, she felt the enormity of the task ahead of her. Even here in Yunkai, would such a thing be possible? And Yunkai was but one city. How could she think of doing such a thing in the great and storied Adrestian Empire?

“I worry,” she said eventually. “The roots of oppression run deep in this land. Not just in the people’s hearts, but in the architecture, the layout of the roads… There are plantations to the west of the city, great farms with rows of cells where men and women are kept like beasts. I have broken their chains, but they remain slaves in all but name. And what if I should truly free them? Could those plantations still function? Could I feed this city if they fail? Could I pay for the new army Ferdinand is training, or for the improvements to the city? It would be simpler to burn it all to the ground and start anew.”

...But she could not find it in her heart to do that. The city was beautiful, despite it all. The former slaves milled about happily, some still wearing their old collars in a show of defiance. Some were brass, some were lined with gold. Some had beautiful etchings in their rim or even precious stones. Qaggaz had explained this to her, that slaves were only permitted to wear ornamentation if it was upon their collars, to symbolize that all their wealth belonged to their masters, and some of these slaves were wealthy indeed. The Ghiscari were a proud people, and it filled her with equal parts of rage and despair to see them so stubbornly clinging to the old ways. Things seemed so simple when she sat atop the great pyramid and contemplated what changes she should make, but down here, down amongst the people she was intending to help…

“You cannot seek to be changing everything,” Petra said. “There was a governor from Adrestia who was sent to Brigid. He sought to civilize our people, bring in roads, laws, priests...”

“Davyd Gerth,” Edelgard replied, a smile tugging at her lips. “Do you truly wish to compare me to that fool?”

“What I mean to say, Edelgard, is that you must be having humility. This city is enormous, and it is not Fodlan. They do not know the faith of Fodlan’s goddess, they do not eat the same foods, or live under the same sun. You cannot have every answer for them.”

“If not me, then who?”

“There are people of this city who are wanting change as much as you are, and they will be- they will have answers where you do not. If you rely upon them, it will be easier for you and better for all.”

“Which people are those? The chief servants? Yezzan? Everyone capable is too invested in the old way to be trusted.”

“Malazza? ”

Edelgard laughed. “Whatever else she may be, she is not invested in the old way, that’s true enough.” The girl was an heiress of no great lineage, born of two wealthy merchants who both died prematurely and despite lacking any particular talent had come to think of herself as some kind of enlightened strategist. She had a sort of naive charisma about her, though, and Edelgard could respect her determination. Perhaps… perhaps Petra was right. Perhaps with guidance, Malazza could continue the work they had started. 

A scream tore her from her thoughts. “Assassins!” her guard cried, and then she saw them. Forty men in tiger masks, armed with curved swords and bucklers. In the press of the crowd they had been almost invisible, and now they were cutting into her guard, but a few paces from where she sat. She swept a javelin out of the air with a contemptuous flick of her ax.

“I will remove them!” Petra yelled, ramming her blade through the eyeslit of one of the masks. She charged forward, cutting freely as the men’s weapons danced harmlessly off her armor.

The flat of Edelgard’s ax slammed into the side of another man’s head, dropping him senseless to the ground. “Hold fast! Try to take them alive if you can!”

The masses panicked and ran, clearing away from the deadly melee. No doubt they were well-used to fights between the Wise Masters and knew better than to intervene. The masked men in the back used this new-found space to circle Edelgard’s party in an attempt to cut them off, keep them surrounded.

Fools.

“Charge!” Edelgard called, and as one her mounted entourage surged forward, breaking through the thin line of masked men completely. You failed when you did not kill me in the first second, Edelgard thought with complete confidence. They did not have enough men to surround her guards, not enough to constrain mounted heavy cavalry. Her guard turned on the men again, horses rearing and kicking.

The whole fight was over in seconds, all the men running or dead or beaten down. “Pathetic,” Edelgard said, “I would expect even the Masters to make a better attempt than this.” She rolled one of the breathing men over with her boot. “Which house do you serve, wretch?”

The man opened his mouth and Edelgard looked away in disgust. The man’s tongue had been removed, cut off, and then seared at the roots.

“Their brands have been removed by scarring them with acid,” Petra stated, inspecting the shoulder of one of the dead men.

Edelgard clicked her tongue in annoyance. The Masters would have to do better than forty men, scarcely armed or armored, but she needed to know who was behind these attacks and know soon. Not for the first time she missed Hubert.

“There’s nothing to be done at present,” she managed eventually. “We need to push onto the garrison.”

And without another word, they gathered the captives and moved on. When had death become so routine? But there was no use in dwelling one the past, and so she pushed on, on and through the city until she came to the garrison. The building itself was a long and low structure, a sort of fortified mansion that had previously belonged to House Ahlaq. They had used it to control trade coming into the city up the red road from Astapo, and now Ferdinand used it for the same purpose, with his garrison of Unsullied and informal militia.

They were training in the yard as Edelgard and her retinue entered the front gate, nearly a hundred men and women training with spears and shields. The militia wore armor of cloth dyed red and yellow, with plates sewn in as an extra layer of protection. Unsullied were among them, leading the drill and participating in it…. And in the midst of them rode Ferdinand, riding between their ranks on his proud Astral Charger, flowing red cape furling out behind him.

In truth, Edelgard had little attended to Ferdinand’s efforts with the militia up until now, happy to assume he would be busy and useful while she played politics at the city level… But she had to give her rival some begrudging credit. The movements of the militia were basic, but still impressive for a host of former slaves who had never held a spear until a month ago. How many were there in the courtyard? Three hundred? Four? She dimly remembered Ferdinand outlining his whole scheme for the defense of the city to her. He had taken a hundred from each district and meant to use them to establish a core garrison for a series of fortified houses throughout the city. Places where freed slaves could train themselves at arms. To her shame, she could not remember most of the particulars, but she trusted his competence, if not his loyalty.

Ferdinand caught sight of them and blew a horn, signaling the end of the exercise. He rode over to them with eagerness, that insufferable smile of his as bright as ever. “Greetings, Edelgard! What do you think of my Freemen Militia?”

“You’ve done well, given the constraints of time and resources. Where did you get the armor?” 

“The weaving houses saw a disruption in their ability to sell their wares, due to the war and the occupation so naturally they were willing to sell their services at a reduced price. Of course, that first meant that I had to determine a scheme for distributing the pay amongst the workers, but… no matter.”

“What is our strength at arms?”

“Five hundred Unsullied left as a garrison by the Queen. With the armor surrendered to us by the Wise Masters we could field perhaps five thousand in defense of the city, but the bulk of those would be untrained tradesmen who would not willingly follow us to war.”

“How many could we take on campaign?”

Ferdinand’s eyes widened. “Why should we do that?”

“I asked you a question.”

“Two thousand,” he said, simply. “If we empty the city entirely of our forces, we could field a thousand militia, alongside the unsullied, the imperial soldiers, and a few of the Second Sons who remain in the city with us.”

“Excellent,” Edelgard replied. “I want you to increase that number to four thousand by the end of the month.”

Ferdinand blinked. “You want me to triple the number of the militia in a single month? ”

“Astapor, our neighbor to the south, has been eating itself alive this past month. The Dragon Queen’s council has been killed and a butcher named Cleon has risen in their place. He has all the hallmarks of being a truly terrible tyrant. I shouldn’t have to tell you the consequence of such chaos in our nearest neighbor.“ 

Ferdinand frowned. “Refugees, rebels, and bandits spilling over the border into our territory. You fear that we will have to deploy forces to police the outlying lands and prevent bandit attacks?”

“Just so. The city is nearly starving as it is. If the roads were to become unsafe because of banditry...” She shook her head. “Besides this, there’s New Ghis to consider. The word is that they’ve called most of their legions back to the capital. If they sail out in force we will need a large and strong force to meet them.”

“Yes, yes, I see the need… however, the numbers you’re requesting...”

Edelgard felt heat well up in her chest. “Are you saying that you are not up to the task?”

Ferdinand stood tall and puffed out his chest indignantly. “Of course not! I only mean to say that… steps will have to be taken. We have arms and armor and willing volunteers, but we have almost no officers, no experienced soldiers to act as commanders.”

“So hire mercenaries.”

“I’ve tried. There are mercenaries to be had, but no ships to carry them. Yezzan’s fleets went rogue before the city fell, and as to the fleets of our neighbors, they will not so much as respond to my letters. The only mercenaries I’ve been able to find are those three.”

He pointed to a trio of men sharing drinks near the back, their olive skin and brown hair standing out starkly amidst the sea of Ghiscari. “I found those three on the docks,” Ferdinand explained. “They managed to come over under the guise of being wine merchants and applied to me for work. No more than these have come.”

The shortest of the three looked up suddenly and caught Edelgard’s gaze momentarily, before looking away in fear almost instantly.

“They don’t look like much.”

“All three are reasonable fighters, but… yes, I have concerns about their loyalties as well. They are continually asking to hear of Queen Daenerys’ movements. But this is the world in which we have come to be,” he said helplessly. "The vast majority of this new world is opposed to us."

Ferdinand sighed, and at that moment something like understanding passed between them. However much they had clashed in the past, however much they disagree on matters of political theory… here, in this strange land, they were allies, and they would trust each other no matter what.


	8. By Faith

Hubert stalked amidst the seediest part of the camp, a region populated by sellswords and whores and predatory merchants, all waiting to pounce on an unsuspecting mark. Hubert supposed he must have presented a tempting target, with his silk robes, silver jewelry, and shirt of samite. He caught the gaze of a man who was eyeing his ring and smiled as the man wilted away. Being frightening had its advantages.

He had always been considered disturbing by his peers, by his own mother even. ‘Why don’t you go outside to play?’ ‘Why don’t you smile?’ ‘Oh Goddess, why are you smiling, what have you done?’ Those memories had not been so pleasant, especially now that his mother had passed on. But that was all in the past, he could not allow it to matter any longer.

He stooped as he entered the tent, a white tavern of sorts that had been set up in the camp of the dragon queen as the siege of Mereen dragged on. He had been here before. The wine was of mixed quality, either cheap swill imported en masse by some profiteer or else excellent dusty bottles liberated from the cellar of a wealthy magister.

He doubted either would matter to the man he had come to meet today.

“You came,” Jorah Mormont said, his slight slur showing that he had already been drinking for some time. “I was not sure if you truly meant to come.”

Hubert sat down across from him at the table and leaned in. “You’re a man of consequence, Jorah, and you have the Queen’s ear. Why should I turn down an invitation?”

Jorah sniffed and fed himself a stab of beef. “Because you hate me.”

Hubert smiled, “True. But I’ve worked with worse than you.”

“Pah. Judge me all you like. I’m here to learn your true intentions.”

“You do not believe that Lady Edelgard is sincere in her attempts to reform Yunkai in the good Queen’s name?”

“Your Lady is a nobody from nowhere. How could I possibly trust either of you?”

Hubert frowned. “I do not wish for us to be adversaries, Mormont.” The man was a dullard, but he had the Queen’s ear, moreso than any other advisor. “I am sure that as two men of resources, we can come to an understanding.”

“No,” Jorah said. “I’ll not be bribed. Not against my Queen’s protection, and not by you.”

Hubert’s eyes tightened. The man was truly loyal then, a true follower of Daenerys, but… how? When he so clearly did not follow the young queen’s vision and had only been with her a year? Had she promised him something truly precious? Did she have blackmail?

A thought occurred to him. He smiled. “I confess, you leave me in a difficult position. We have told the truth as best we are able-”

“Sorcery gone awry, leaving you in a strange land.” Jorah scoffed.

“-and I hardly know what to say. If you will not believe the truth, am I to lie? Our land has many sorcerers who are capable of great feats. You have already seen what I and Linhardt and Flayn and Dorothea are capable of. Can you truly say it is impossible?”

“Even if it is true, what then? Who are you, really?”

Hubert chuckled. “Are you asking to get to know me better?”

Jorah quaffed his wine. “What of it? We’re in a tavern aren’t we?”

Ah, now the conversation turned. The man doubtless sensed the growing friendship between the Queen and Lady, sensed that Daenerys had begun heeding Edelgard as much as himself. Jorah was adjusting his position, to retain his influence in the Queen’s court. He wanted them for an ally rather than an enemy.

Hubert swilled the wine the waiter had poured for him. Dark red, almost black. Wine from Astapor, taken as spoils, nearly a century in the bottle. The flavor tasted of smoke and felt like velvet as it trailed down his throat. He savored the sensation a moment, then returned to eye contact with the man across the table.

“Let me tell you who I am. I am the son of the manager of the imperial household, a man you might call a majordomo or castellan. When I was seven my father told me I was to protect and serve Edelgard with my heart, mind, and soul…” His voice trailed off.

“And?”

“...And so I have, and so I always will,” he said simply. “There’s nothing more to say. I am nothing beyond that.”

Jorah leaned in, his breath hot with alcohol. “I think we understand each other then. It is the same for me. With Daenerys. I will follow her through all seven of the hells and then run myself through with a sword if she demands it.”

And you respect her wishes so well that you oppose her at every turn and treat all the other advisors with contempt. You do not obey your queen, you seek to rule her.

“It would be best,” Jorah continued, “if we could see eye-to-eye in the future. The Queen has enough enemies outside without facing fights within.”

“We have not sought to antagonize you.”

Jorah waved his hand dismissively. “I have only offered wise counsel to the Queen, nothing more. You cannot begrudge my mistrust of you and your Lady. I only ask that you come to me before speaking to the Queen, so that we can truly understand each other. I have the Queen’s ear, and you would rather have me as your friend than as your enemy.”

Hubert resisted the urge to laugh. The knight’s intention was clear: He wanted to force Lady Edelgard to go through him to get to Daenerys. He wanted to close her off from Daenerys’ throne, to make her a lesser partner within his own faction. Ridiculous. The very idea was insulting. Lady Edelgard would serve Daenerys while she was in this foreign land, while it suited her own purposes, but she would not be made subservient to some roughspun country hick with only the most basic understanding of politics.

“I am sure,” Hubert said, “that as the Queen’s loyal servants, there cannot be any true bad blood between us. So long as we are united in supporting her goals.”

“Your Lady claims to have a noble vision,” Jorah continued. “But what is her real purpose here?”

“Back at that again? Do you think it so impossible that someone would share your Queen’s goals?”

Jorah’s face reddened with heat. “I cannot believe you outright, not yet. No one is as good or as generous as my Queen. No one.”

“Certainly not you.”

A vein pulsed in Jorah’s forehead. “Good people get taken advantage of, get thrown to the gutter after being despoiled by lesser folk. I need to be there, to keep her alive, to guard her, to protect her from false advisors….”

“Who of her advisors are false? Me?”

“You-”

“I am an evil bastard, yes, but by your own admission so are you. Come on now, let us be honest with one another. You want to retain your position. You want me to agree to come to you before I come to the Queen. You want the Queen to trust you and only you.”

“I am the only one who can be trusted!” Jorah’s voice was hardly above a whisper but it was as panicked as a scream. Something flickered in the man’s eyes, something that Hubert could not entirely place. Guilt? Shame? Pride?

“The Queen disagrees,” Hubert said simply. “We don’t need your support, Mormont. My Lady shares Daenerys’ vision, supports her in it, and unlikely you, I obey my Lady. You need to consider that perhaps this queen who you so claim to love is your queen and is deadly serious about the business of chain-breaking. She will not love you forever if you continue to oppose her in this...” Hubert chuckled into his wine. “...If you continue to oppose us in this. Whatever misplaced affection she has for you will run out eventually, and then you will be left out in the cold.”

Jorah’s face twisted in anger, and Hubert half-expected him to lunge across the table and attack him. His left hand hovered above his knee, pulsing with dark magic…. But Jorah did not attack. He merely sat there, seething.

“I thank you for the wine,” Hubert said simply, emptying his cup. He arose and left the tent, a broad smile creeping over his face as he left.

***

“I’m not so naive as to suggest that what Solon did to us was impossible,” Linhardt stated as they climbed down the stairs of the Great Pyramid of Qaggaz. “But there’s no basis or precedence for it! The power of the spell signifies that Dark magic was employ. That much, I understand. The dark is visceral and powerful and dangerous. I understand the appeal of such arts to those as unscrupulous as Solon, but using it to move a body through the higher dimensions, as we were? Ridiculous. All modern theory holds that such an effect can only be achieved through white magic, the polar opposite discipline.”

Flayn listened as best she could. Linhardt had been rambling on this topic ceaselessly for days now, and though it was interesting... She was thinking more of the audible *crunch* that had sounded as Solon finished the incantation, his hand deep inside the chest of his subordinate. He had… crushed something. Something brittle and breakable. The spine? Or the heart? She felt tightness in her chest, as though hands were closing around her heart. She and her father and all her uncles and aunts all had hearts of stone, hearts that would make… that sound if they were to break under pressure. All her family had been killed, except for her father and a few others. All of them had… had been taken. Butchered and used for parts. Many had been accounted for over the years, but many more remained lost.

Had one of the crest stones, the hearts been found by Solon and Kronya? Had Kronya embedded a crest stone in her chest by some foul process? Had Solon destroyed it to gain the power he needed to cast that awful spell? Would her friends require another crest stone to get back? Would… would they require hers? The thought was most distressing!

“So you see my issue!” Linhardt continued. “It’s completely unprecedented, my study materials use an entirely different foundation of magic, and I’m not even particularly adept with Dark Magic. I would ask Hubert for assistance, but he’s too busy with diplomacy.” Flayn smiled. Linhardt said that word like it was a curse.

“I’m sorry that you have to suffer in this way,” Flayn said. “But perhaps this is a cause for joy as well! I do not think you would be grateful for Hubert’s presence if he were here.”

“Perhaps not.”

They had come at last to the pyramid’s base, where the stairs widened and then gave way to a great plaza with pillars on each of the corners. No merchants or tradesmen gathered here, only the lame and the blind, beggars and orphans, nearly five hundred souls. The imperial soldiers had attempted to corral them, keep them away from the stairs and from the main path through the plaza into the city, but they were too few and the seething mass of unwashed humanity. Flayn had walked through this plaza a dozen times by now and the numbers grew with each passing day.

“Don’t worry milords,” one of the guards said, “We’ll keep them off you. You’ll pass through without any greater inconvenience than the smell.”

“No, wait,” Flayn said, stepping forward toward the crowd. “I am Flayn,” She said, trying to speak as loudly and forcefully as she could. “I am an advisor to the Captain-General and keeper of the archives. If you all have a request to make of the Captain-General, I will hear it now.”

A man whose legs had been cut off beyond the knees hobbled forward, prostrating himself before the steps. “Wise Mistress,” he said, his force raspy and dry. “In times past we would come here to partake of the generosity of the great Yezzan, to eat his bread and drink his water. He would send… nurses among us, caretakers… but with the fall of the city…”

The man stopped, but Flayn could fill in the rest. Throughout the past month, Edelgard had been consolidating her power in the city, setting those loyal to her over important institutions. Flayn and Linhardt managed the scribes of the city, Ferdinand was given charge over policing the city and training the militia, Edelgard herself had taken charge over a court of half a dozen of the least objectionable Wise Masters…. But in the end, there were a thousand things that needed doing and only nine Black Eagles. Beggars, even five hundred of them, could fall through the cracks… so, so easily.

“I will speak to the Captain-General,” she promised, “Food is scarce in the city, but we will do all we can.”

“Wise Mistress, we are but humble worms in the light of your generosity,” the beggar paused uncertainly, “But we also have others among us. Some are sick, others were injured in the fight, in the riots. We do not only need food, but we also need medicine, we need healers… We are only worms, Wise one, but still...”

Flayn nodded. “Linhardt, could you go on without me? I think that I may be here a while.”

He raised an eyebrow. “I can’t get much done without you. Besides, if you’re going to do what I think you’re going to do I would just as soon watch.”

Flayn smiled, then turned back to the gathered crowd. “People of Yunkai!” She yelled, her voice sounding tinny and weak in the wind. “I bring to you the gifts of the Goddess in the name of the Saints Seiros and Cethleann!”

With these last words, she raised her hands toward the sky. Goddess, she breathed, Mother, hear my prayer and visit these, the most unfortunate, with your power. She stood there a moment, in deep concentration, and then…. The answer. Power. Radiance. Her heart felt light in her chest, light and bright as the sun. She was open, she was empty, a conduit for the power of the Progenitor, which washed through her and over her without stopping or slowing, rushing out to the masses before her like a sparkling wave.

The effects were immediate. Gaping sores closed over instantly, lame men stood on previously-weakened legs… all around the plaza, tiny miracles of healing took place as the light of the Goddess washed over them.

Flayn sustained the power, sustained the magic. So many at once… but this was nothing. She had done this before, in the old war, and those injuries had been more severe than any of these. She was not so strong as she was then, the fire within her had diminished considerably, but she could do at least this much.

The magic faded at last.

“It truly is astounding,” Linhardt said, “the difference between you and me, in terms of raw power. At first, I thought it might be because you had a major crest of Cethleann compared with my minor crest but… I have seen others with major crests of Cethlean, and they would not be capable of something like this.”

Flayn giggled. She did not bear a crest of Cethleann, she was Cethleann, and all those who bore her crest, Linhardt included, only shared in the smallest fraction of her power. “Perhaps my crest is even more major than theirs.”

“Ridiculous,” Linhardt replied, smiling, “Such a thing has only been proposed as a hypothetical. But I suppose you have piqued my curiosity, I...” he paused. “...Oh dear.”

The denizens of the plaza had prostrated themselves as one before Flayn. She felt lightheaded, she did not know what to say. Seiros, no… Rhea would know what to say. Father would know what to say, but Flayn had been raised away from the church that Seiros had built, and she had only a layman’s understanding of their liturgy, their doctrine. She knew the ways of the goddess, but not how to articulate it, how to express it.

“Do not bow to us,” Linhardt stated, stepping forward. “We are but the Goddesses' messengers, empty vessels who purvey her light. Pray not to us, but Sothis, the Progenitor.”

He turned aside to her, smiling that lazy smile of his. “Surprised I could remember the liturgy? I didn’t sit through all those services for nothing.” He paused to yawn. “We really should be going. They still need food and water and more dedicated treatment.” He paused. “This relates to what I observed earlier. The people of this city have no conception of white magic. It’s not even different in the way that the white mages of Brigid or Almyra are different, it's just… not present. From what I hear they think that Edelgard is some sort of deity because her crests heal her as she fights. It’s bizarre.”

Flayn nodded silently and followed him through the crowd. The people were all around them, touching them, pushing in against the guards who surrounded them… but Flayn did not mind that so much. She only wished she could do more. “The Goddess bless you,” she said, as one man bowed to her. “The Goddess watch over you,” she said to another.

But as she left, a thought formed in her head, a thought that would not lie still, but grew and grew and bothered her more and more.

“Linhardt,” she said, “Did you say that Edelgard’s crest healed her?”

“Yes. Dozens saw it at the fight by the gate including many of our own. She did not have any magical items or assistance so it must have been the crest. It’s most remarkable because-”

“-because her crest of Seiros doesn’t heal!” Flayn replied, finishing his thought. The crest of Seiros, which had been in Edelgard’s family for a thousand years, granted strength, resistance, personal energy… but not healing. Did Edelgard possess a different crest? Had some sort of magical ability been given to her?

Flayn felt almost giddy! So many new experiences in this new world!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, Flayn. Such a sweetheart.
> 
> Ah, Hubert... so much not a sweetheart.


End file.
